Staff at Ascent Media Network Services' playout centre at Stephen Street, London are braced for redundancies as a result of BBC Broadcast's successful bid to provide playout facilities for Flextech, writesAlice de Picarda.
Staff at Ascent Media Network Services' playout centre at Stephen Street, London are braced for redundancies as a result of BBC Broadcast's successful bid to provide playout facilities for Flextech, writesAlice de Picarda.

Although Flextech is still contracted to Ascent Media for playout of all 10 of Flextech's channels including Living TV and Bravo, the contract will move next summer.

Sources suggested that potentially up to 100 jobs out of a total of around 400 could go as Discovery Networks Europe is also set to move its playout facility, in its case to Chiswick in November. The number is denied by Ascent Media. Around 20 jobs at Stephen Street relating to the Discovery contract may also go at the end of October when the tape library becomes mainly server-based.

The Stephen Street site, formerly the London Playout Centre, was acquired by California-based facilities giant Ascent Media in March 2004 for around£20m. It was merged with Ascent Media's Charlotte Street branch, which closed at the beginning of the year to amalgamate its services into the company's Wardour Street offices.

Ascent Media Network Services Europe senior vice-president Bob Gentry added: "We are aware of Flextech's plans to move its playout services, but at present we have no formal noti-fication as to the timings of this move. We are still discussing plans going forward both externally and internally and evaluating every possibility. At present, it's too early to comment further on this."

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