Gambling on TV betting: William Hill is the first bookmaker to announce its own iTV channel. Will rivals feel bound to follow suit, or is it going against the odds with an untried medium?

New Media Age, June, 2004 by Sean Hargrave

William Hill has always had a reputation of being firmly committed to online gambling, so its decision last month to launch a TV channel on Sky probably came as little surprise to its rivals. Through a joint venture signed with DITG (owner of Avago), William Hill will begin branding the broadcast company's iSports TV (channel 425 on Sky) from the autumn.

The move, insists William Hill CEO David Harding, underlines the bookmaker's reputation as a new media early adopter as well as, crucially, making it "convenient" to bet with the brand as it supplements the high street with online, mobile and TV channels.

"We were one of the first online and last year we made a 37m [pounds sterling] net profit on the Web, mainly because we always follow a low-cost, low-risk...