Ideal World

This article is about shopping channel. For the Chinese manhua, see An Ideal World.
Ideal World
Launched 17 April 2000 [1]
Owned by Ideal Shopping Direct Ltd
Picture format 576i (SDTV)
Country United Kingdom
Sister channel(s) Ideal Extra
Create & Craft
Craft Extra
Website idealworld.tv
Availability
Terrestrial
Freeview Channel 22 (Ideal World)
Channel 36 (Create & Craft)
Satellite
Freesat Channel 810 (Ideal Extra)
Channel 811 (Craft Extra)
Channel 812 (Ideal World)
Channel 813 (Create & Craft)
Sky Channel 654 (Ideal World)
Channel 661 (Ideal Extra)
Channel 674 (Create & Craft)
Channel 675 (Craft Extra)
Eutelsat 28A 11307 H 27500 2/3 (Ideal World, Ideal Extra, Create & Craft & Craft Extra)
Cable
Virgin Media Channel 747 (Ideal World)
Channel 748 (Create & Craft)
Smallworld Cable Channel 230 (Create & Craft)
Channel 231 (Ideal World)
Channel 232 (Ideal Extra)
WightFibre Channel 44 (Ideal Extra)
Channel 48 (Ideal World)
Channel 49 (Craft Extra)
Channel 64 (Create & Craft)
Streaming media
TVCatchup Watch live (UK only) (Ideal World)

Ideal World is a shopping channel in the UK whose sister shopping channels include Create & Craft, Ideal Extra and Craft Extra. It is owned by Ideal Shopping Direct Plc.[2] Their sister health and beauty channel, Vitality, closed early in 2008. Ideal Shopping Direct also sell plants and flowers through Garden Bargains.com and pet and pet supplies/accessories via lovepets.co.uk (formerly known as Animal Bargains.com). The channel broadcasts from its studios in Peterborough. Ideal World currently broadcasts live 17 hours a day, with Create & Craft live 9 hours a day.

History

Founded in the 1980s as a mail order company selling products via national press adverts and consumer exhibitions The company was then called Wrightway Marketing and was run by Paul Wright and his business partner Val Kaye. The company later produced its own catalogues, inserted into the Daily Mail, and sold at the Ideal Home exhibition.

In 1999, land was bought in Peterborough with a view to building premises to serve as live TV studios, offices, warehousing, and a call centre. Ideal World was launched on 17 April 2000 on digital satellite broadcasting 24 hours a day. A pre-launch documentary was recorded by a documentary team from Channel 4, charting the channel's launch onto Sky and featuring the main management of the time and the Presentation team of Paul Lavers, Debbie Flint and Steve Whatley, and was called "Telly Sales".

On 6 March 2001, the facility at Peterborough was completely destroyed by fire. The channel was back broadcasting within weeks from various temporary facilities whilst the main building was rebuilt: it was not fully operational again until September 2002. Ideal World has not disclosed whether a cause was found for the fire.

As the television side of the business re-grew, sales in the catalogue business slowed down and became insignificant in their contribution to the company, and the catalogue business was wound down in order to fully concentrate on selling on TV. A catalogue-style website, 'Ideal World Essentials', was produced for a short time featuring essential products for the home; this has since been closed and now links back to Ideal World itself.

The Create and Craft Logo

On 18 April 2003, Create and Craft was launched with the createandcraft.tv website following on 23 August 2003.

1 January 2004 saw the launch of Ideal Vitality. This was originally a channel from Goldshield, "Goldshield Vitality", for which Ideal Shopping Direct provided the studio recording and broadcast facilities. However, by the end of 2005 Goldshield pulled out of the venture. Ideal Shopping then broadcast a similar channel focusing on health and beauty products from Ideal's range, under the 'Vitality' name. Ideal Vitality was then wound down and replaced with highlights from past Ideal World shows 24-7, the channel being renamed on the Sky EPG as "Ideal World 2". "Ideal World 3", then followed, repeating Ideal World 2 shows.

Although pre-recorded in the vast majority, Create and Craft now offers live programming 9 hours a day, every day. It broadcasts 24 hours a day on Freesat; programmes after 7pm being repeats.

On 23 April 2004, Ideal World began broadcasting on Freeview channel 22 which massively increased its potential customer base and drove business growth in the next couple of years, and meaning that come digital switch-over, any home with a TV will be able to tune into Ideal World and purchase products.

Ideal World has featured on three series of the The Apprentice, in which the candidates chose items to sell on their channels and serve as presenters.

Jewellery Vault, a falling-auction style jewellery channel was launched on 1 July 2005 broadcasting live 5pm-1am and subsequently closed in July 2006 due to it not covering its operating costs.

On 3 November 2007, the Ideal World Outlet in the Rivergate Centre, Peterborough, was opened by Shaun Ryan and Debbie Shore. Ideal World Outlet was Ideal's first 'traditional' shop, where end-of-line items and customer returns are sold at further discounts. It later closed down.

Other projects that have featured in recent years are: iChild, a subscription club for expectant mothers with advice and relevant products; Ideal World Essentials, an online 'turning page' catalogue from which popular and new Ideal Shopping products could be purchased at any time, and Ideal World Savings Club, a voucher booklet for popular venues across the UK such as pizza restaurants, wine bars etc. All of these ventures have now closed.

Early in 2008, Ideal World also agreed to re-broadcast Smart Live Casino in its early morning hours, from 1am to 3am, on its Freeview slot, to allow the Roulette broadcaster access to the Freeview audience. This agreement has now ended.

On 3 March 2010, 'Ideal World 2' was renamed 'Ideal Extra' and 'Ideal World 3' was renamed 'Ideal & More'. On the same day, 'Ideal Extra' launched on Freeview until on 1 June 2010. On 14 October 2010, 'Ideal Extra' launched on Freesat channel 810.

In January 2010, Ideal Shopping acquired Lead the Good Life, under which they run gardenbargains.com website. In September 2010, the company launched Pets and Wildlife Ltd, under which they run two transactional websites, lovepets.co.uk (formerly animalbargains.com) and britishwildlife.tv

The company was taken private through an acquisition by Inflexion Private Equity in 2011. The £78.3m deal was announced in April 2011[3] and completed in June when the company was delisted from the AIM stock market.[4] In February 2012 Ideal acquired Internet site Createtoday.com and made their second acquisition in May 2012 when they acquired knitting Internet retailer Deramores.

On 24 August 2012, 'Ideal & More' was renamed as 'The Deal Channel'. Since October 2013 it has been rebranded as Craft Extra.

On 1 November 2012 "Createtoday.com" was relaunched as "mydoodle.com" with a revamped website and product offering to focus on high quality greetings cards and wall art.

Current presenters

[5]

Controversy

In May 2013 Ideal World became the subject of a BBC Watchdog investigation [6] after viewer complaints about non-delivery of goods and the allegedly poor quality of some products. Customers also alleged that complaints to Ideal World customer services either went unanswered or were not satisfactory. In response to the investigation, a spokesperson for Ideal World suggested that the incidents highlighted by Watchdog were isolated and attributed the customer service difficulties to a transition between providers.

The Watchdog investigation followed claims by the Daily Mirror online [7] that complaints about Ideal World submitted to its blog had "passed the 100 mark".

References

  1. ↑ "About Us-Ideal World". Ideal World. Retrieved 9 February 2015.
  2. ↑ "Licence details for Ideal World". Ofcom. Retrieved 6 June 2007.
  3. ↑ FT.com - Ideal Shopping Direct agrees Inflexion deal
  4. ↑ Inflexion invests in Ideal Shopping Direct plc
  5. ↑ "Ideal World Presenters Gallery - IdealWorld". Idealworld.tv. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  6. ↑ "Ideal World: A shopping channel that's not so ideal?". BBC. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  7. ↑ "Ideal World: the complaints mount up". Daily Mirror online. Retrieved 1 March 2014.

External links