Discovery Denies Brexit a Reason for Closure of Chiswick TV Hub

Concerns remain over status of business park offices as their European headquarters

Discovery Communications, which has its European headquarters in Chiswick Business Park, has denied that the closure of a local broadcast facility is a result of concerns over Brexit.

Discovery currently broadcasts over 100 channels across Europe from its Chiswick base, including Animal Planet and Eurosport, but it has announced that this function will be shifted to a base in the US with around 100 local jobs affected. They say that this is part of a consolidation of their broadcast function which has been enabled by cloud technology. The playout of non-live channels will now be handled in a facility in Sterling Virginia.

The factual entertainment broadcaster moved into Chiswick Business Park in 2005 establishing their European headquarters in Building 2. They currently employ around 1,300 in the UK and is the biggest broadcaster to use the UK as a hub to broadcast to the continent.

A spokeswoman for Discovery said, “This is part of our vision to move to a more agile operational technology model. This has nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with technology innovation being core to our company and brand. This migration to the cloud is a global initiative that has been underway for a while.”

The industry press say that Discovery will now look to develop the Chiswick location as a hub for sport and live broadcasting although the already have a similar facility in Paris. The Guardian claims that Discovery has stopped describing the Chiswick office as their international headquarters.

They hold their broadcast licences through the UK regulator OFCOM and these allow them to transmit to other countries within the EU. However, it is not clear whether any Brexit deal will allow this arrangement to continue and it is thought that Discovery may need to move more of its operation to bases in the Netherlands or Poland if the regulatory environment becomes more restrictive for broadcasting from the UK.

June 3, 2018