Shutdown
At the start of 2007, the station was losing several thousand pounds a month but had said that it was on course to reduce its losses dramatically since its move to Sky and the dramatic increase in revenue should have taken it into profit by 2008. However, a statement on the Solent TV website on 24 May 2007 read:
- Solent TV will stop broadcasting tonight Thursday 24 May 2007 as the company ceases trading because it’s insolvent.
- The channel, which started terrestrial transmissions on the Isle of Wight in October 2002, expanded across Europe on the Sky satellite network in January 2007. Financial problems four months later mean company directors have decided to shut down the TV station despite talks with potential investors. Solent TV’s sister organisations, Island Volunteers, Community Solutions and DV Media, are also ceasing to trade. All employees are being made redundant.
Solent TV's final programme was a shorter-than-normal edition of the local news programme, Solent Tonight.
The day after the company announced its closure, much of its new HD equipment was taken away by investors.
Critics pointed that the station first appeared to publicly be in financial trouble several months before the shutdown, when it announced it was introducing a dedicated national rate phone number. The station claimed it was receiving such a large number of calls, that its normal number could not cope. However, it was widely acknowledged the station received less or similar amounts of phone calls than other media organisations such as the Isle of Wight County Press and Isle of Wight Radio, which used normal rate numbers. The station denied it was to make money.
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