Today, as has been the case sporadically over the past few months, Motors TV again disappeared from Sky’s television platform. However, on this occasion, the channel also went offline for Virgin Media viewers.

A reputable insider on Digital Spy Forum has since posted about it, stating that the channel was put into receivership five weeks ago by a French court (Motors TV is a French company).

Verif.com allows the public to browse basic details for individual companies, a bit like Companies House in the UK. The record for Motors TV shows that a court decision was taken on May 31st, 2016, i.e. five weeks ago. The court decision is known as a “backup procedure”. The procedure suspends the payment of debts for those businesses, such as Motors TV, who are in money difficulty.

The benefit of a “backup procedure” is that the company can be reorganised so that creditors can be paid. In essence, reading between the lines, “backup procedure” is the French term for “receivership”. It therefore seems likely that Sky and Virgin Media, and whoever else, have not been paid (yet) and have taken Motors TV off their respective EPG slots for the moment until they have been paid.

The court judgment, issued on June 10th, 2016, can be found here. The judgment does mention appointing administrators and also receivership, by stating “Receivables are to declare, within two months of this publication, to the Judicial Agent or the web portal at <weblink>”

Based on the information in the public domain, the picture looks bleak…

Update on July 8th – Motors TV is back on the EPG so it is here, for now.