Crown Castle UK Announces Agreement With Channel 4 for Additional Digital Terrestrial TV Broadcast Capacity

27 May 2005

Crown Castle UK, the mobile telecommunication and broadcast transmission infrastructure company, has announced that Channel 4 has been selected through an auction process to take up an additional digital TV channel on multiplex C, part of the UK's digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform.

This new capacity on multiplex C is being made available as a result of Crown Castle taking advantage of improvements in infrastructure technology and maximising the value of scarce DTT resource.

Peter Abery, Crown Castle's chief executive officer, commenting on the agreement said: "This is good news for Crown Castle and viewers of the Freeview service. We have been able to demonstrate our ability to deliver on one of our key strategic objectives and viewers of the Freeview service will have even more channels to choose from."

Dan Brooke, Channel 4 Controller of Digital Channels, said:
"Channel 4 performs more strongly on Freeview than any other multi-channel platform but additional capacity is scarce. We are delighted to have been awarded the new channel which will enable us to further extend Channel 4's unique brand into an increasingly digital world."

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Notes to Editors:

Crown Castle UK is a wholly owned subsidiary of National Grid Transco and is the leading independent provider of infrastructure to the mobile telecommunications operators in the UK, with a portfolio of 14,500 sites throughout the UK.

Crown Castle UK is one of two UK providers of terrestrial infrastructure for the transmission of analogue and digital television and radio broadcasts in the UK and as such achieves a 98% population coverage. In addition to the traditional analogue services, Crown Castle UK has a strong position in the growing digital television market, owning two of the six digital terrestrial television licences and providing infrastructure services to all the Freeview channels and the BBC and BSkyB.

Contact for further Information:

Stephen Arnold
Communications Manager
+44 (0) 1926 416 870
+44 (0) 7803 887 288 (m)