Motors TV founder Jean-Lu Roy says it’s “business as usual with benefits” for both audiences and suppliers. It follows last week’s announcement that the channel was being acquired by Miami-based Motorsport Network.
There had been suggestions that the channel might drop its linear channels in favour of OTT delivery alone. “Our linear output is the heart of our business and will remain so, all that will change is that we will upscale to HD in early 2017,” he said.
However, a new OTT platform will launch early in 2017 and the company’s name will change to Motorsport.tv in the first quarter of 2017. The channel will retain its five feeds: UK, France, Rest of Europe, North America and Latin America. It plans to develop new markets in Europe and the Americas.
“The great news is that we will continue the 16-year tradition of linear broadcasting into the future, but the benefit of new ownership is that we have investment to scale our operation to full HD and also offer existing – as well as new audiences – the opportunity to view our content in both traditional and on-demand ways – the best of both worlds.”
In July, Motors TV was placed in effective receivership known in France as the ‘procedure de sauvegarde’ (safeguard procedure).
