Sumo TV was a
free-to-air
Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...
television channel owned by
Cellcast Group. On 1 July 2006, You TV was relabelled as Sumo TV. Sumo TV was officially launched on 28 November 2006, claiming to be the world's first
user-content TV channel. Through their website and programming blocks on other TV channels, Sumo TV also had operations in America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, with a showcase of local content.
Every time a clip was broadcast, the originator of the content received a percentage of the revenues generated. The channel was criticised by
Ofcom
The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.
Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...
for putting too much responsibility for complying with the broadcasting code on the creators of user-generated clips rather than performing sufficient checks themselves.
On 25 October 2007,
James Brown was hired as Sumo TV's creative and editorial director, Brown introduced a dozen new programmes.
On 27 March 2008, it was announced that Cellcast had sold Sumo TV and Sumo TV +1's EPG slots to Discovery for £1.4m as well as receiving a slot further down the Entertainment category of the EPG. Later in the year Sumo TV moved to the Adult category followed by the Gaming and Dating category allowing them to broadcast content from Cellcast's adult channels at night. Sumo TV returned to the Entertainment category on 25 November 2008 with programming from
Psychic Television as well as archive footage.
On 21 August 2012, Sumo TV closed and was replaced with a simulcast of the
Horror Channel
Legend (formerly Horror Channel, and Zone Horror) is a British free-to-air television channel specialising in sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, action and cult series. It is broadcast in the UK and Ireland. The channel is known for its horror movies dur ...
on Sky channel 198.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sumo Tv
Cellcast
Free-to-air
Television channels in the United Kingdom
Television channels and stations established in 2006
English-language television stations in the United Kingdom
Community-created content television
Defunct British television channels
Television channels and stations disestablished in 2012