ONE MORE THING:WE DON'T know good his Hungarian is but David Harvey is set to launch his latest media venture in Budapest in June. Called City 7, it's an offshoot of his Dublin-based City Channel TV station, which went live in October 2005.
Harvey has teamed up with Liberty Global, his fellow investors in City Channel and the owners of cable television operator UPC, for the Budapest project.
UPC is a big cable TV player in Hungary and Harvey expects to tune in to about 400,000 homes at launch. "We think there's lots of potential there," he said.
Critics scoffed at City Channel, which is carried only on UPC's digital service, when it hit the air about 2½ years ago because of its low-brow line-up of shows.
Its schedule is an eclectic mix of local news, programming aimed at gay and ethnic communities, and "live" coverage of Adrian Kennedy's FM104 phone-in show.
It recently launched an hourly news bulletin service.
Harvey last year persuaded Liberty to invest about €2 million in City Channel for a 35 per cent stake. The Irish business is thought to be washing its face financially.
A company called City Channel Eastern Europe has been set up to run the Budapest operation, with Liberty as the majority shareholder.
About €1.2 million is being pumped into the Hungary launch. If it flies, Harvey hopes to take it to other parts of Europe where Liberty has cable TV operations.
"The objective would be to try Prague and Warsaw where UPC is a big cable player."
