Channel Bizzarre, the hardcore porn channel run by Paul Goodman of Active Logic and PR Technology infamy has apparently been put into liquidation. Another of Goodman's operations, The Card Company, has also been put into liquidation. According to one source, the creditor's meetings for the two companies are to be held as early as next week.
A posting to the alt.satellite.tv.crypt newsgroup gave the details of Goodman's mobile phonenumber and home address should anyone care to have a chat with him. The message advised anyone who had purchased a subscription from Channel Bizzarre with their credit card to contact the credit card company immediately as it may be possible to get a refund. However for those who had paid over hard cash, the situation is dire. They are not likely to see any refund since they would become unsecured creditors, way down the pecking order after the UK tax authorities and the banks. The rapid calling of a creditor's meeting makes it difficult for creditors to attend the meeting. This is not the first time that one of Goodman's operations has come unstuck.
Active Logic was rapidly liquidated after sending out simple 4066 based blockers to customers who had paid hundreds of pounds for what they thought was a D2-MAC pirate card. PR Technology was liquidated after an apparent break-in to the PR Technology premises. During the course of this break-in the chips and designs for PR Technology's Filmnet digital audio decoder were taken. The problem was that a hack for Filmnet's digital audio was only available from Hi-Tech Xtravision and nobody in the industry believed that Goodman's operation had hacked the digital audio. Like all the other times, it was just too convenient.
The first indications of problems for Channel Bizzarre surfaced in November when subscribers cards would not actually descramble the channel. Strangely the pirate cards continued to work perfectly. No doubt Goodman will lay most of the blame for the failure of Channel Bizzarre on the heads of those who have sold pirate Channel Bizzarre cards. It is somewhat ironic that his other operation, The Card Company was taking adverts the UK satellite TV press selling pirate D2-MAC cards.
The most recent indication was the story about Channel Bizzarre being proscribed by the UK government. This surfaced in December. The line here was that the channel was stopping broadcasting until they received clarification about the proscription order from their UK and Dutch legal advisors.
The problem with this is that the UK government had denied that they had issued a proscription order against Channel Bizzarre. When LookHear contacted the UK government over the proscription issue, they said that "The Government has not made a proscription order in respect of Channel Bizarre. The ITC notified the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport that the channel was an unacceptable foreign satellite service under the Broadcasting Act 1990. The Secretary of State subsequently notified the broadcaster of the infringements and sought an amicable settlement under the Eu 'Television without Frontiers' Directive. The last we heard is that Channel Bizarre had temporarily ceased broadcasting". It now looks like Channel Bizzarre has ceased broadcasting - permanently.
