RTL Nederland will turn its daytime business news channel RTL Z into a full-time, 24/7 news channel on multiple devices.
RTL Nederland CEO Bert Habets announced the news in a video message on YouTube. The new channel will launch during the first quarter of 2015 and carriage negotiations with the various distribution platforms are now under way. RTL Z will also be available as a live stream on mobile.
At the moment, RTL Z is broadcast during daytime on RTL7, a male-skewed channel during the remainder of the day. Various TV series will be added to RTL7’s daytime programming, but the broadcaster did not issue any details.
In a related development, SBS Broadcasting is also working on the launch of a new channel, which will be a female-skewed channel next to SBS6, Net5 and Veronica. SBS’s fourth channel will also be launched during the early part of next year.