Ostrich Media is a United Kingdom (UK) company, created in 2005 as a wholly owned subsidiary of 4Ventures Limited (the commercial subsidiary of the public-service commercial broadcaster

Channel 4 Television Corporation Channel Four Television Corporation is a British state-owned media company headquartered in London. Its original and principal activity is the British national television network Channel 4. The company was founded in 1982 as the Channel Four Te ...

). The company is currently part of

Wireless Group Wireless Group Limited is a radio and digital broadcasting network with headquarters in Belfast, Northern Ireland and with radio operations in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. It currently operates five stations in Ireland and ...

and has run Brain Box for both UTV and South African channel, E-TV. It was also the owner of QuizCall, the UK's first dedicated quiz television channel.

Sale

Following a sale in November 2006, Ostrich Media became wholly owned by iTouch. Reports suggested the reasons for the sale included: * the fact that Ostrich's QuizCall channel was not performing to expectations * fears that the subsidiary might damage the Channel 4 brand * a pending investigation of

participation TV Participation or Participant may refer to: Politics *Participation (decision making), mechanisms for people to participate in social decisions *Civic participation, engagement by the citizens in government *e-participation, citizen participation ...

by the regulator

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

and a desire by Channel 4 not to appear too aggressively commercial ahead of an Ofcom review into public service broadcasting. * a desire by Channel 4 to free the spectrum that it occupied on

Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...

for other purposes. Consequently, whilst the sale included QuizCall's space on Sky Digital, Channel 4 retained the space the channel had used on Freeview. As a result of the loss of space, QuizCall stopped broadcasting 24-hours per day on Freeview on 15 November 2006. Following the sale, a review of the channel saw its

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

hours reduced to accommodate an expected drop in viewers when the channel lost its 24-hour DTT space. A significant number of freelance presenters ceased working for the channel due to the reduction in broadcast time. The company was managed at the time by

Director-General A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer, within a government ...

of Green Media LTD, Nathan Bond.

Controversy

In late November 2006, Channel 4 issued an apology after staff were revealed to have impersonated competition winners to encourage more people to call in. Ostrich's Frederik Fleck then conceded before the Common's

Culture, Media and Sport Committee The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, formerly the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, is one of the select committees of the British House of Commons, established in 1997. It oversees the operations of the Department fo ...

that telephone lines may have been blocked to stop callers from getting through.

Recent history

The QuizCall channel ceased broadcasting on Sky Digital and aired on Channel 5 until 9 September 2009. On 31 March 2010, UTV purchased Ostrich Media to form a new division to be known as UTV Interactive.

References

Television production companies of the United Kingdom {{UK-bcast-stub