Portland TV was a British adult television company that was owned by Neon X that offered subscription and pay-per-view services to UK audiences on the

Sky UK Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

Virgin TV Virgin TV is a digital pay cable television service in the United Kingdom, owned by Liberty Global (50%) and Telefónica (50%) after the merger its UK businesses to form Virgin Media O2. Its origins date from NTL and Telewest, formerly two of ...

and

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 ...

platforms.

History

The company was established in

London Docklands London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London. It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of London Borough of Southwark, Southwark, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Tower Hamlets, London Borough of ...

in 1995 as the adult broadcasting division of the British publishing group

Northern & Shell Northern & Shell (holding company name Northern and Shell Network Ltd) is a British publishing group, founded in December 1974 and owned since then by Richard Desmond. Formerly a publisher of pornographic magazines including ''Penthouse'' and ''A ...

. At one point, Portland owned its own broadcasting facilities, but they were transferred to Channel 5, which Northern & Shell also then owned. In 2016, Portland TV was sold by Northern & Shell in a management buy-out, becoming wholly owned by Neon X, in a deal that saw Northern & Shell's complete departure from involvement in the UK television industry. Portland was reportedly sold for less than £1 million after contributing less than two per cent of group revenues per year over the previous three years, or about £9 million per annum. Portland's managing director, Chris Ratcliff, led the buyout. At the time, Portland was broadcasting five adult channels and two on-demand online services. In September 2020, MG Global Entertainment (Europe) Limited, who owned fellow adult pay-per-view networks in the United Kingdom, purchased Portland TV and merged them into their own operations.

Channels

Television X Television X (TVX) is a series of adult pay-per-view television channels in the United Kingdom owned by MG Global Entertainment (Europe) Limited. Until 2020, it was owned by Portland TV which was a subsidiary of Richard Desmond's publishing com ...

was launched in 1995. Additional channels were launched as sub-brands of Television X, and the channel began Internet streaming content in 2007. Red Hot TV was launched in 2000 as an additional set of adult channels; the brand was renamed Xrated in 2017.

Current

(Launched in 1995 as "The Fantasy Channel") * 40+ (Launched in 2017)

Former

* Erotika ** Erotika 1 (closed on 1 March 2004) ** Erotika 2 (closed on 2 February 2004) ** Erotika 3 (closed on 2 February 2004) ** Erotika 4 (closed on 16 October 2003) ** Erotika 5 (closed on 16 October 2003) ** Erotika 6 (closed on 16 October 2003) * Television X sister channels ** Television X Amateur ** Television X Brits ** Television X FFWD

Regulatory issues

In both 2008 and 2009, Portland was fined by

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 ...

for broadcasting material equivalent to

BBFC The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of f ...

classification R18 on their Television X channels. The fines were £52,500 in total. In the same years, Portland was found to have breached the broadcasting code by advertising R18 website content on Red Hot TV, and on the second such occasion Portland was fined £25,000 by Ofcom.

References

{{reflist Television channels and stations established in 1995 British pornographic television channels Privately held companies of the United Kingdom