Channel S

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Channel S

Launched	2004-12-16
Slogan	Working for the community
Country	United Kingdom
Broadcast area	United Kingdom Europe
Headquarters	London
Sister channel(s)	Channel S (Bangladesh) Channel S 'Channel i' ATN Bangla
Website	www.chsuk.tv
Availability
Satellite
Sky Digital	Channel 814
Eurobird 1	28.5°E 11,488 V SR 27500 FEC 2/3
Intelsat	24.5°W 11,674 V SR 27500 FEC 3/4

Channel S is a UK-based, free-to-air television channel targeting the Bangladeshi community in the United Kingdom & Europe. It began broadcasting on 16 December 2004 on Sky channel 827 following a timesharing agreement with ATN Global. In March 2005, it moved to its own EPG channel 837 and started broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Being the first channel broadcasting content mainly in the Sylheti language, it has built up a loyal following among the majority Bangladeshis in the UK who the majority come from, Sylhet. It provides viewers with Bengali drama, music, news and many more programmes to satisfy, and it provides shows that are voicing the concerns of the Sylheti community, shows such as Legal Advice, where it helps the people who are in need of advice of immigration services and many more concerning on the local people of the community.

1 History
2 First Solution Money Transfer scandal
3 Controversy
4 Popular Programmes
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

From August 2006, Channel S acquired the rights to broadcast two of Bangladesh's prominent satellite channels, NTV (Bangladesh) & ATN Bangla. These are also available on Sky channels 826 & 827 respectively. Since then, it has stopped broadcasting NTV, and now has acquired the rights to broadcast, Channel I started from October 2007, and throughout Europe.
In May 2007, Channel S launch Islam4U - a channel dedicated to Islamic programmes

[edit] First Solution Money Transfer scandal

Main article: First Solution Money Transfer

In June 2007, First Solution Money Transfer, a financial services company run by at least one the managing directors of Channel S went into liquidation owing the public hundreds of thousands of pounds. Bangla TV, a rival TV channel, broadcasted comments from the public alleging that Channel S had deceitfully marketed First Solution to raise its profile within the community in order to facilitate this scam - holding the chairman of Channel S personally responsible. Many people lost money from this scandal which was one of the biggest financial scandals of 2007.

Mahee Ferdaus Jalil, the chairman of Channel S, filed for an injunction against Bangla TV to prevent further allegations of impropriety by Channel S or its Chairman from being broadcast as well as defamations cases against a number of prominent businessmen who had made the allegations.^[1]

There are a lot of unanswered questions regarding the linkage between Channel S and First Solution Money Transfer as well as many emerging investment vehicles. It is also worth noting that Channel S is now actively promoting "Fast Step" money transfer company, using adverts that mirror the services offered and style of First Solution.

Channel S states it is the 'voice of the community', however there is anecdotal evidence that callers into its talkshows with views critical to the channel are deliberately cut off from Broadcast.

[edit] Controversy

Channel S is under investigation, as of April 2008, by Ofcom for a breach of the Communications Act 2003, after airing election adverts for the Liberal Democrats just days before the London mayoral election, 2008. Under the act you cannot air election adverts as opposed to election broadcasts. The adverts were running on the channel from 18 April 2008.