Sit-up Ltd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- The correct title of this article is sit-up Ltd. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
| Sit-Up Ltd | |
 |
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| Type | Subsidiary - Flextech |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2000 |
| Headquarters | UK |
| Industry | Broadcasting |
| Products | Shopping Television Channels |
| Slogan | The UK's fastest growing TV retailer |
| Website | sit-up Ltd company website |
sit-up Ltd (or commonly sit-up) is a UK based broadcaster which launched in 2000.
To over 12 million homes, it delivers a portfolio of mainly aution shopping TV channels. They are ultimately owned by media company NTL-telewest, via its Flextech content division - this follows partial ownership prior to May 2005. sit-up runs the channels bid tv, price-drop tv and speed auction tv each day from 8am through to 1am. The downtime is covered by their rolling advertisement arm, Screenshop. The channels are designed to sell consumer products via digital TV (currently carried by digital satellite, cable, and terrestrial) or the Internet.
Contents |
[edit] Channels
[edit] bid tv
bid tv (known as bid-up.tv until 21 January 2005) is a television channel based in the UK - the first of its kind in the world - it runs live televised auctions every day through various digital television platforms
The channel was launched by its parent company, sit-up Ltd, in October 2000. It started by broadcasting 12 hours a day, many of which were pre-recorded, with auction graphics overlaid so people could bid although the video itself was pre-recorded. It later extended its hours to 18hrs a day (8am - 1am every day) and is now completely live.
[edit] price-drop tv
price-drop tv (which dropped the dot from its name price-drop.tv on 21 January 2005) is a shopping channel that is focused on falling prices, using a form of uniform-price Dutch auction.
It began broadcasting on 11 June 2003, with broadcasting hours of 4pm - midnight, Wednesday to Saturday. This was later extended to 8am-1am 7 days a week. It is available to more than 12 million homes in the UK, and is achieving weekly revenue of over £3 million.
[edit] speed auction tv
speed auction tv was launched on the 27 July 2005, and features rising price auctions lasting about 4 minutes.
The channel runs from 8am-1am every day and is only live between 4pm and 8pm and then from 9pm until midnight on Wednesday through to Saturday.
[edit] Screenshop
Screenshop is an infomercial-based shopping channel. It broadcasts 24 hours a day on the Sky Digital platform, and during the hours of 1am-8am every day during sit-up's downtime on its other channels. A deal in July 2004 meant that Vector Direct will now broadcast their presentations exclusively on the channel, this has lead to the channel being striped of its identity, it is now broadcasts under Vector Direct own band 'TV Warehouse', but is still owned by Sit-Up.
[edit] Defunct Channels
[edit] matinee movies
mantinee movies was the name of the movie channel Movies4Men that runs on Sky Digital when it was owned by Sit-up. It was on Sky Digital channel 336 and ran from 9am-9pm. The channel showed family-orientated films, and rare films such as Love in Pawn or the Frankie Howerd bequest comedy A Touch of the Sun. The last hour of the channel was occupied by some of sit-up's shopping auctions, such as speed auction tv. The Breaks between films were regularly filled by these channels. Films on the channel were introduced by film critic Paul Ross. As an interlude, or at the start of the broadcast day, there were showings of a film magazine programme called Sprockets (not to be confused with the SNL sketches with Mike Myers). The channel was recently sold to Dolphin Television, who renamed it Movies4Men on February 1, 2006. It intends to begin broadcasting 24 hours a day, although its initial schedule follows the same hours as their predecessors but with less auction programming. As the title of the station shows, they have changed their content, when you compare the previous content of matinee movies, but several films from the former channels pop up from time to time. This is because archive needs to be replaced, and the stations have to make do with the films in there until later on.
[edit] bad movies
bad movies was the name of the movie channel ACTIONMAX that runs on Sky Digital when it was owned by Sit-up. It was on Sky Digital channel 339 and ran from 9pm-9am. bad movies played a variety of cinematic "turkeys", but evidently, some of the content was from matinee movies, especially after 5am. The first three of bad movies were occupied by some of sit-up's shopping auctions, such as speed auction tv. The Breaks between films were regularly filled by these channels. Films on the channel were introduced by film critic Paul Ross. As an interlude, or at the start of the broadcast day, there were showings of a film magazine programme called Sprockets (not to be confused with the SNL sketches with Mike Myers). The channel was recently sold to Dolphin Television, who renamed it ACTIONMAX on February 1, 2006. It intends to begin broadcasting 24 hours a day, although is initial schedule follows the same hours as their predecessors but with less auction programming. As the title of the station shows, it has changed their content, when you compare the previous content of matinee movies, but several films from the former channels pop up from time to time. This is because archive needs to be replaced, and the stations have to make do with the films in there until later on. Sit up dont own the movie channels anymore now
[edit] Technical issues of Defunct Sit-up movie channels
Many of the films shown on matinee movies and bad movies were taken from inferior copies with poor sound and/or picture quality. In addition, they were almost invariably screened at the wrong aspect ratio, being squashed vertically (or stretched horizontally) into 16:9 letterbox format from 4:3 originals. This is common of many satellite/freeview channels/programs, especially quizzes and games.
Movies4Men retained the letterboxed format and distorted pictures. ActionMax dropped letterboxing in most cases and removed the picture distortion. As of March 2006 neither channel has shown any noticeable improvement in picture quality.
[edit] External links
- sit-up Ltd company website
- bid tv website
- price-drop tv website
- speed auction tv website
- bid TV - link to live streaming
- price-drop TV - link to live streaming
| Sit-up Ltd | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bid tv - Price drop tv - Speed auction tv - Screenshop | |||||||||
