Having already cut the carriage fees for the Virgin Media-owned Flextech channels by a reported £25m a year, Sky is believed to have forced cuts on Viacom-owned stations, including Nickelodeon and MTV, and is now looking to implement cuts on other channels.
The carriage and ad deals for the Sparrowhawk Media-owned Hallmark Channel were due to run until 2008 and were last renegotiated in 2000. Then, Hallmark held discussions with numerous TV sales houses and also considered setting up its own sales house.
However, although Hallmark may be irked by Sky's stance on carriage fees, media buyers doubted whether it could get better sales representation than Sky Media.
Meanwhile, Sky Media is about to lose the sales contract for eight Emap channels, including The Box, The Hits and Smash Hits, which are to be produced in a joint venture with Channel 4 with advertising sold by C4.
Media Week revealed six months ago (October 3, 2006) that Emap was negotiating a strategic partnership with C4 for the joint running of its music channels. An agreement has now been reached.
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