It's Christmas Day 2013 and your other half buys you a special present....

[steveh31]

....your own tv shopping channel. :mysmilie_13:

However when you finished celebrating comes the bad news....:mysmilie_10:

The channel is £68m in debt, year on year turnover had nosedived, your creditors want paying, your suppliers are reluctant to let you buy decent goods in case you can't pay for them, you are relying on p&p to make a profit as you are selling your goods under the value you paid for them.

On the plus side you have a number of tv channels, including a prime, much sort after slot on Freeview, you can reach over 12 million viewers everyday and previous surveys have shown over 95% of previous customers are satisifed, you also have the cream of live presenters who can broadcast for three hours with little trouble and a loyal set of off screen staff who want the business to succeed.

So you now own this channel, with all it's problems how will you turn this channel around, what will you do to stop it going bankrupt.

Remember you are in a vicious cache 22 cycle... in order to make a profit you need to sell decent products, you cannot buy decent products until you satisfy your credits and suppliers, to satisfy your creditors and suppliers you need to get people buying, to get people buying you need to sell decent products....

So what will you do?

It's now in your hands.:mysmilie_506:

 

[Greg]

I would give the 'present' back to him and tell him to bog off. :mysmilie_51:

 

[snowden]

The channel isn't and never was £68 million in debt, yes it has been making a loss for last few years, those figures though are based largely on penalties, fines and other costs for contractual breaches, many of which are disputed

 

[Wirral70]

To save money on their enormous salaries i'd offer Mike Mason and Peter Simon to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and BSkyB.

But when there were inevitably no takers i'd asset strip it (well, sell the plasma screens anyway) and just shut the shocking shambles down :mysmilie_59:

 

[Price Plunge]

Personally I would sell one Freeview slot (Bid's, being the most valuable) to the highest bidder, with the proviso that they will have to wait three months for it to be available (no change from old Bid delivery promises there! :grin, which should raise several million for the purchase of new products and securing staff wages for three months. And I will launch...wait for it...Speed Auction TV. Unusual products you may find difficult to buy elsewhere sold using rising price auctions, and the Pricedropper online outlet will be expanded and promoted, perhaps also selling via Amazon/eBay as well (if they let us).

Presenters kicked out the door will be basically everyone except Adam Heppenstall, Justin Hazell, Lisa Brash and perhaps one or two others, with the aim of having a roster of six regular presenters with one or two newcomers. I'd give Peter Simon a weekend late night slot if he can be house-trained :mysmilie_14:

So there you have it: Speed Auction TV on one channel (nationwide on Freeview for the first 3 months before retreating to the less-viewed and cheaper Price Drop slot), and an online-only Pricedropper sales outlet selling a wider range of goods. Quality individually-crafted items will be sold when and where obtainable though we have a shedload of these Klaus Kobec things to dispose of first.

Now where were we...

 

[KingEurope]

You could be printing money.

Administration means it won't be sold piecemeal, they'll want to sell Sit-Up as a whole, which means it'll be sold well, well below what the assets are worth, and they have some extremely valuable assets (Freeview/Sky slots, three broadcast quality studios and galleries, etc.).

I would put my money on a large company with a history in shopping TV elsewhere on the globe buying the whole thing and rebranding it under their banner. A relatively quick way of getting into the UK market without having to pass Ofcom's tests for new broadcasters, maybe? The Ideal World founders could fancy buying, their intentions were to get back into the shopping TV business surely with the £6 million they were going to throw at Sit-Up. For a bit more they have an amazing opportunity of owning the whole thing, and they have the bank account and experience.

 

[Paul_s]

There's only one answer.

I would sell Mike Mason to the NASA space program for £100 million so that he can personally go to the moon with a memory foam bed.

No doubt the Goddess would approve as his television profile would go sky high... Little does she know that this is a one way trip for the search for alien beings. In space no one can hear you scream (well the SETI program would be solved if Sally Jacks were up there; she'd summon all known life forms just by shouting from the Milky Way and beyond).

 

[PJ.]

Reminds me of the Simpson's episode where the Germans take over the power plant. It would be like that if I had taken over bid

Me (on intercom) I regret the following lay offs in alphabetical order. Mason, Mike. That is all

 

[Dave]

....your own tv shopping channel. :mysmilie_13:

However when you finished celebrating comes the bad news....:mysmilie_10:

The channel is £68m in debt, year on year turnover had nosedived, your creditors want paying, your suppliers are reluctant to let you buy decent goods in case you can't pay for them, you are relying on p&p to make a profit as you are selling your goods under the value you paid for them.

On the plus side you have a number of tv channels, including a prime, much sort after slot on Freeview, you can reach over 12 million viewers everyday and previous surveys have shown over 95% of previous customers are satisifed, you also have the cream of live presenters who can broadcast for three hours with little trouble and a loyal set of off screen staff who want the business to succeed.

So you now own this channel, with all it's problems how will you turn this channel around, what will you do to stop it going bankrupt.

Remember you are in a vicious cache 22 cycle... in order to make a profit you need to sell decent products, you cannot buy decent products until you satisfy your credits and suppliers, to satisfy your creditors and suppliers you need to get people buying, to get people buying you need to sell decent products....

So what will you do?

It's now in your hands.:mysmilie_506:

What I would do is bend over as far as I could manage, the stick my up head up my bott as far as I could - oh hang on, that's what must have happened by management for some while. Some one must take responsibility for allowing the dire presentations, and the mega low level of tat, and the disgraceful way certain presenters seemed bomb proof in the way they behaved. Fingers were definitely NOT on the button. If people worked for me and presented my company in such a way - I would have replaced them, not allowed them free range to please themselves. There is no easy answer - true, but to suggest a solution at this stage is not an option. Putting good money after bad would be wrong. Stay well out of it. Rant over - normal conditions now apply.

 

[snowden]

It is all too easy for everyone here to point the blame at the presenters, after all they are the only publicly visible part of the company. The fact is what went wrong with bid goes way beyond that, the result of bad decisions by senior managers who did not understand the business, poor contract negotiations with suppliers, difficulty in sourcing of quality products due to loss of many of the best buyers and product sources.

The decision to move away from entertainment and go all out hard sell on products and upsells after the purchase was a big mistake. This is something the presenters had little control over,the presentation style demanded came from the top and it was a case of go with it or get out (which some did, and others were looking to do).

There were a lot of good , honest genuine people at bid who cared deeply about the channel the products and the customers. The picture painted here is one of a group of people doing their best to lie , cheat and taking advantage of people by ripping them off in any way they can. This is not the bid I saw and not my experience their at all. What I saw for the bulk of my time there was genuine people trying to source and deliver decent products at bargain prices, the things that went wrong happened through the direction of those at the top.

The presenters are just that ....presenters, and if they are told to sell in a certain style or format that is what they must do.

Many of the freelance crew and presenters have not been paid for months, yet still carried on doing their best in difficult circumstances.

 

[steveh31]

It is all too easy for everyone here to point the blame at the presenters, after all they are the only publicly visible part of the company. The fact is what went wrong with bid goes way beyond that, the result of bad decisions by senior managers who did not understand the business, poor contract negotiations with suppliers, difficulty in sourcing of quality products due to loss of many of the best buyers and product sources.

The decision to move away from entertainment and go all out hard sell on products and upsells after the purchase was a big mistake. This is something the presenters had little control over,the presentation style demanded came from the top and it was a case of go with it or get out (which some did, and others were looking to do).

There were a lot of good , honest genuine people at bid who cared deeply about the channel the products and the customers. The picture painted here is one of a group of people doing their best to lie , cheat and taking advantage of people by ripping them off in any way they can. This is not the bid I saw and not my experience their at all. What I saw for the bulk of my time there was genuine people trying to source and deliver decent products at bargain prices, the things that went wrong happened through the direction of those at the top.

The presenters are just that ....presenters, and if they are told to sell in a certain style or format that is what they must do.

Many of the freelance crew and presenters have not been paid for months, yet still carried on doing their best in difficult circumstances.

That may well be the case but a business that doesn't listen to it's staff when they tell them they are doing the wrong thing is a business that is going nowhere, the people at the forefront know a lot more than the people pulling the strings.

Maybe if they had sat and listened and taken note of forums telling them they were doing it wrong this wouldn't have happened.

 

[snowden]

That may well be the case but a business that doesn't listen to it's staff when they tell them they are doing the wrong thing is a business that is going nowhere, the people at the forefront know a lot more than the people pulling the strings.

Maybe if they had sat and listened and taken note of forums telling them they were doing it wrong this wouldn't have happened.

Very TRUE, they didn't listen Steve, if you questioned decisions or did not go along with everything the Company Directors wanted you were quickly "removed" from the business

 

[snowden]

Mike Mason takes a lot of stick on here, but if you look at the way his style changed between his two stints at bid tv you will see that he was great to watch first time around......now do you think that change in presentation style was wholly down to him?

 

[steveh31]

Mike Mason takes a lot of stick on here, but if you look at the way his style changed between his two stints at bid tv you will see that he was great to watch first time around......now do you think that change in presentation style was wholly down to him?

Well I would say that Mike grew up between stints the wide eyed boy got married and settled down, I wouldn't necessarily say it was all Bid who changed him if he wanted to be cheeky chappy he would have been.

Same really for Elisa the flirty lovable Lisa got married , had a child and calmed down just what happens in life.

I am sure if Mike and his wife didn't like how Bid treated them and tried to turn him into something he wasn't she would have had something to say about it.

 

[Wirral70]

Well I would say that Mike grew up between stints the wide eyed boy got married and settled down, I wouldn't necessarily say it was all Bid who changed him if he wanted to be cheeky chappy he would have been.

Same really for Elisa the flirty lovable Lisa got married , had a child and calmed down just what happens in life.

I am sure if Mike and his wife didn't like how Bid treated them and tried to turn him into something he wasn't she would have had something to say about it.

I don't wholly buy the line that the presenters were made to behave in a certain way, sure there must be an element of truth in that but if that was totally the case then they all would have become shysters and they didn't. We all know who seemed to revel in that kind of behaviour but ultimately all it achieved was what it would always achieve, to contribute to the collapse of the channels. It's so very easy to earn yourself a bad reputation but boy, it's hard to lose one.

I just think some of them decided to fully embrace the dodgy tactics, simple as that. Gollum isn't married, she's only his girlfriend but to read her speaking on his behalf and, in my opinion, astonishingly revealing highly specific information regarding the total amount of unpaid wages you could be forgiven for thinking she's his very loose tongued Press Secretary.

I understand they must be raw but I think she may rue the day she was quite so liberal with that information, I really do. And Guy Kean? Wow, If I was an employer I think i'd probably swerve him, no matter how badly he may or may not have been treated.

Given his very dignified public silence since leaving Sit-Up I don't think it's any coincidence that Andy Hodgson seems to be doing OK.

 

[Muttley]

Did management tell Mike to call people mutants? Or say Sally eats cat food? Or tell us his partner's gross habits? Mike appears to have a lot of aggression which if you scratch the surface is all too apparant. And I don't just mean in the last couple of months when he was not being paid.

 

[Wirral70]

Did management tell Mike to call people mutants? Or say Sally eats cat food? Or tell us his partner's gross habits? Mike appears to have a lot of aggression which if you scratch the surface is all too apparant. And I don't just mean in the last couple of months when he was not being paid.

I genuinely believe he'll regret his behaviour Muttley. As far as i'm aware no other channels have presenters of his ilk, i'm sure his style will suit certain Cabaret Clubs but not TV, no way.

To say he's probably limited his opportunities is an understatement. Anyway, I believe his spokeswoman said that he may not work in TV again, i'd say that's a given but not because it's his own choice.

 

[Tasi]

Well, I could hardly employ lesser known and therefore cheaper salespeople (aka 'presenters') could I? They were using the dregs anyway. I would think the only thing to do is rent out the channel to the USA advertising people who run on a loop. Ideally though it would be cheaper and kinder to give this awful firm a decent burial

 

[Tasi]

It is all too easy for everyone here to point the blame at the presenters, after all they are the only publicly visible part of the company. The fact is what went wrong with bid goes way beyond that, the result of bad decisions by senior managers who did not understand the business, poor contract negotiations with suppliers, difficulty in sourcing of quality products due to loss of many of the best buyers and product sources.

The decision to move away from entertainment and go all out hard sell on products and upsells after the purchase was a big mistake. This is something the presenters had little control over,the presentation style demanded came from the top and it was a case of go with it or get out (which some did, and others were looking to do).

There were a lot of good , honest genuine people at bid who cared deeply about the channel the products and the customers. The picture painted here is one of a group of people doing their best to lie , cheat and taking advantage of people by ripping them off in any way they can. This is not the bid I saw and not my experience their at all. What I saw for the bulk of my time there was genuine people trying to source and deliver decent products at bargain prices, the things that went wrong happened through the direction of those at the top.

The presenters are just that ....presenters, and if they are told to sell in a certain style or format that is what they must do.

Many of the freelance crew and presenters have not been paid for months, yet still carried on doing their best in difficult circumstances.

Of course they did. Who else would employ them

 

[Wirral70]

[/B]

Of course they did. Who else would employ them

You have to wonder just how much damage certain presenters have done to their future careers. It is surely no exaggeration to say that some of their antics were quite simply jaw dropping.

Nicola George had the good sense to emigrate to Australia, she couldn't have got much further away from the United Kingdom. I think a similar journey will be a wise move for a few of them if they want to stay on TV.