Dutch website Fabchannel is to stop broadcasting on March 13th, the site’s owners have announced.
Another victim of the economic downturn, Fabchannel was a highly successful site in its time. Gathering a devoted fan base across Europe and beyond, Fabchannel delivered high quality footage of some up and coming acts including sensational sets by Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, Late Of The pier and many more.
However, it seems that the squeeze on advertising revenue has forced the site to close. In a statement the site’s owners said “online concert channel Fabchannel.com ceases its activities as of today, due to bad economic prospects within the music and online advertising market.”
“The Fabchannel business model bases itself on two essential ingredients: international streaming rights and international advertising/sponsoring revenue. After a substantial investment in 2007, Fabchannel has been focusing fully on increasing its reach among the international audience and the development and implementation of online advertising formats and partnerships.”
“After an energetic start in 2008… the audience has not increased as planned, mostly due to the majority of major record labels giving no consent to record their artists. At the same time, the online advertising and sponsoring market has been put under big pressure due to decreasing budgets of advertisers and sponsors.”
“The management and shareholders of Fabchannel expect that this situation is not going to change during the next years. Therefore, they have jointly taken the decision to stop all activities in order to avoid getting into financial problems and, for example, lose the possibility to use the archive they have been building in the future.”
“Fabchannel’s concert archive will go offline on Friday 13 March. During the upcoming months, Fabchannel will strive to make suitable arrangements with employees, customers and suppliers.”
RIP Fabchannel
