L!VE TV
L!VE TV is a British television station operated by MGN on cable television from 1994-1999 and revived by BSKyB for Sky Digital in 2003. The channel was proposed by David Montgomery as MGN's first foray into pay television. At its launch in 1995, the station was headed by Kelvin MacKenzie with Janet Street-Porter as Managing Director and a team of young "tellybrats". Street-Porter left after only five months due to repeated clashes with MacKenzie over content, she was replaced with Mark Cullen. MacKenzie went on to create a number of media-famous but unwatched programmes. Defiantly cheap and always accused of "poor taste" the channel never captured more the 1% of the audience under MGN, losing around £7 million a year. It was often described as "tabloid television". This was in no small part due to be controlled by MGN, and MacKenzie being an ex-editor of The Sun. Amongst its better known programmes were Topless Darts and Canary Wharf a soap opera, which used the station's offices in London Docklands as a set. Another regular feature was the weather in Norwegian read by a blonde lady in a bikini! Shortly before its demise in 1999, it is said that the channel would bid for rights to show the English Premiership, but it is not clear whether this was a publicity stunt or not. By this time, the channel had increasingly moved over to showing soft porn.
Newsbunny
Amongst the more notorious features of L!VE TV's output was Newsbunny. This was a person in a rabbit suit, who would stand behind a newsreader and make appropriate gestures and expressions for each of the items.
External link http://www.livetv.co.uk/
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