Playboy TV Europe is outsourcing its technical services requirement to Encompass and has selected The EPG Shop to manage the sale of its Network Operations Centre facility in London. Run by Nick Doff (pictured), the company buys and sells EPG numbers on the Sky platform, a number of which they have sold for Playboy.
Doff ran TSI until 2000, handling post work for most of the major production companies and broadcasters, then play out for Discovery, Fox, National Geographic, and MTV, among others. He sold TSI and remained active in the industry, buying the newly built studio centre of UPC in Prague with Mitcorp, and buying back TSI in 2008, only to later sell it on to WRN.
Speaking of the project Doff said, “I was very pleased that Jeremy Yates chose us to help him with this. They have only recently spent over £1.2m renovating the facility, putting in all the latest Snell and Wilcox automation and it is going to be a great buy for someone. The ideal purchaser will be someone who can get the real benefit from it being more than the sum of the parts. The facility is based in central Hayes near the airport, it can handle pass through channels, playout of 18, HD, “babe” studio space and a lot of post production, streaming and storage. It is a working facility and is ready to walk into. At new there is over £3m of kit, not including the design and installation, I am seeking expressions of interest at £0.5m, so someone is going to get a great deal! This is ideal for a post company that wants to expand into playout, a playout company that wants to quickly grow inexpensively, a multichannel broadcaster that is sick of inflexible or expensive service from the market, or even a great place for disaster recovery.”
Doff continued, “I do hope we can find a buyer for the whole facility, it is a steal at the price Playboy would be happy with. That said, it may not be easy finding a suitable buyer in a relatively short period. If we can’t find a buyer for the whole facility, there will be a breakup of the facility and a sale of the assets in the autumn. We have already had expressions of interest from one of the UK’s biggest operators and two other significant companies who could easily buy this if they decide it fits. If anyone was to build from scratch what is working well now, they would need to spend more than the £3m. There are many companies that this would be a small buy for.”
The EPG Shop is looking for expressions of interest now and will be putting forward the most attractive bids to Playboy in late August/September.
