Further information: UKTV

UKTV is a joint venture between the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, and Virgin Media Television. UKTV is one of the United Kingdom's largest television companies.^[19] UKTV's channels are available via satellite and cable in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. In the UK, on digital terrestrial television, UKTV History and Dave are available on the Freeview platform, and selected parts of UKTV Gold, UKTV Style and UKTV Food are available through Top Up TV. From 2008 UKTV are considering airing localised versions of their channels in the Republic of Ireland market featuring local advertisements and sponsorship.

UKTV Gold is the main channel operated by the network and usually has an audience share higher than that of Sky One. UK Gold launched on November 1, 1992 as a joint venture between Thames Television and the BBC to show reruns of their classics archive programming, UKTV Gold and its sister stations are now part of the UKTV network, owned jointly by Virgin Media Television and the BBC. The output of the channel is mainly British comedy programmes and sometimes feature length films. These are a combination of internally produced shows and repeats of shows from the BBC and ITV archive. Although in recent years original programmes have aired on the channel and the US version of Dancing with the Stars has had its first UK airing on the channel. But in doing with this the channel has been criticised by some, for featuring many recent programmes as opposed to classics as was the original concept, with some shows appearing on the channel mere months or weeks after their first television broadcast.

UKTV Style was launched on 1 November 1997 with the output focused on lifestyle programmes, mainly image, home improvements and DIY shows that are a combination of internally produced shows and repeats of shows from the BBC archive. Before the launch of UKTV Food, it also showed many cookery programmes and gardening programmes, however these now all reside on the new channels UKTV Food and UKTV Gardens respectively.

UKTV People along with UKTV Documentary launched on 8 March 2004, replacing UK Horizons, which closed the day before. The output of the channel is mainly factual programming of a lighter nature, such as Top Gear and docusoaps like Airport. UKTV Documentary was launched 8 March 2004 with an output consisting of, as the name suggests, documentaries, mainly taken from the BBC archives such as Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. However, the majority of the channel's programming is abridged by the BBC for commercial timing purposes, a policy that some critics consider hypocritical. The channel, along with a time-shifted "+1" version, is available on Sky Digital and Virgin Media. However, it is not available on Freeview, despite the majority of the programmes being made by the BBC.

UKTV Gardens launched on 23 February 2005. As its name suggests, the channel focuses entirely on gardening shows, which were previously broadcast on UKTV Style. In February 2005, UKTV Style Gardens was launched moving all gardening content from UKTV Style to the new channel. It lost recognition to UKTV Style in early 2007 when it adopted the more generic name UKTV Gardens. It is available on Sky Digital and Virgin Media.

Dave is the newest channel launched by UKTV, on October 15, 2007, and the first without the UKTV or any UK branding. It was announced in September 2007, that UKTV G2 would relaunch and be renamed to Dave.^[20]. UKTV said the name of the channel was chosen because "everyone knows a bloke called Dave".^[21] The rebrand included the channel being available free-to-air on digital terrestrial platform, Freeview, replacing UKTV Bright Ideas which only averaged 0.1% of the audience share.^[22] The move to Freeview saw Dave launch in the bandwidth previously used by UKTV History which now uses the time limited (07:00-18:00) bandwidth once occupied by UKTV Bright Ideas. Dave is available daily, from 7 am to 3 am, on all platforms. It calls itself "the home of witty banter" and now uses Phill Jupitus as an announcer.

UKTV Drama is another channel operated by UKTV and as the name suggests its main focus is on showing dramas mainly from the BBC and ITV archives. Originally launched as UK Arena on 1 November 1997, as an arts channel, it was renamed and shifted its focus on dramas after disappointing initial ratings. On 2 May 2006, a new plus one service called UKTV Drama +1 was launched to replace the defunct UKTV People +1 timeshifted channel.

UKTV History is the history channel from the UKTV network. Previously known as UK History until 8 March 2004, it launched on 30 October 2002, to coincide with the launch of Freeview. UKTV History's main focus are on programmes with historical topics and biographies, as is to be expected, nature and wildlife and some historical fiction, often from the BBC archives. Hours were reduced on the Freeview platform when Dave launched, meaning that now it operates on terrestrial between 7am and 6pm.

UKTV Food launched on 5 November 2001 broadcasts a range of food and cookery programmes, similar to that of the content of BBC Worldwide's BBC Food service. Initially most of the channels output was aired on UKTV Style until UKTV Food was introduced. The UKTV Food website originally devised and launched by Ian Fenn and Ally Branley provides a number of services including information on programmes shown on the channel, recipes, message boards, and a wine club. Recipes come from the various shows on UKTV Food and some include videos taken from the demonstrations. In September 2006 UKTV Food's website overtook the BBC Food site in popularity for the first time, achieving a 10% market share, against the 9.63% the BBC Food site dropped to, having held the top spot since it began.^[23]

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Defunct UKTV channels

UKTV has also had many former channels which have been replaced by others. UKTV G2 was replaced on all platforms by Dave, which still carries all the same programming on October 15.^[24] Originally named UK Gold Classics it was launched when UK Gold began to move towards newer programmes instead of older ones. From 2 April 1999 it was renamed to UK Gold 2, and screened morning programmes from UK Gold time-shifted to the evening of the same day. It was again relaunched with a completely new programme lineup and renamed UKG² on November 12, 2003. Along with the rest of the UKTV network, the "UK" prefix was changed to "UKTV" on 8 March 2004 and therefore the channel name changed to UKTV G2. The output of the channel was mainly comedy from the BBC with some shows produced in house. A fair amount is similar to the comedy output of UK Play/Play UK before that channel's closure.

Another channel, UK Arena, closed in 31 March 2000 due to insufficient ratings, relaunched — originally with the same graphics — as UK Drama. As said before initial ratings were disappointing and it was decided to relaunched the channel as UK Drama, with a focus on showing dramas rather than general arts programme. Along with the rest of the network, the "UK" prefix was changed to "UKTV" on 8 March 2004.The channels main focus was on arts programming.

Play UK another UKTV channel closed in 2002 due to low ratings after the closure of ITV Digital which a substantial amount of its viewers came from. The channel was launched on 10 October 1998 and was aimed at playing, for most of the time, music in the morning and afternoon while broadcasting comedy in the evening. Play UK broadcast all day on the digital platforms but on the Astra 1 Sky Analogue satellite system, it broadcast between 1am and 7am when UK Horizons wasn't broadcasting. It closed for a number of reasons spanning from the closure of ITV Digital to how it could not compete with MTV. Play UKs comedy programming was moved to UKTV Gold. UK Gold 2, formerly UK Gold Classics, closed in 2003 became UKG2 and later UKTV G2 and then Dave.

UK Horizons, closed in 2004 to create UKTV People and UKTV Documentary. The channel was mainly based on showing BBC documentaries and other factual programmes. Most programmes were abridged for commercial timing purposes. It took its name from the BBC series Horizon, which formed a staple of its output in the early years. It was launched on 1 November 1997 along with UK Arena and UK Style. It also produced extended versions of top BBC brands such as Top Gear and Tomorrow's World. The launch editor was Bryher Scudamore and the deputy editor Eddie Tulasiewicz. UKTV People +1 closed in 2006 to create UKTV Drama +1.

UKTV Bright Ideas closed in 2007 on all platforms for the relaunch of UKTV G2 as Dave going onto Freeview. Previously known as UK Bright Ideas and originally UK HomeStyle the channel broadcast a variety of programmes, often originally aired on UKTV Style, UKTV Food and UKTV Gardens, and are thus mainly cookery, DIY and gardening. However, in January 2005, it began showing programmes branded by UKTV Sport, presumably to increase potential audience figures by extending the programme to Freeview viewers. Bright Ideas was launched on 15 January 2003 initially for the Freeview digital terrestrial television platform, but later expanded. In September 2007 UKTV announced that UKTV Bright Ideas would be replaced on Freeview by UKTV G2, renamed Dave, as of 15 October due to low viewing figures of around 0.1% of the audience share.^[22] It ceased broadcasting on all platforms on 14 October 2007 at 6pm.

Also note that there was a channel called UK Living that was originally affiliated with the UK Gold but did not become part of the UKTV network, instead transferring to Flextech to be operated as a wholly owned company, it changed its name to LivingTV before the UKTV network launched. Also an analogue teletext service known as GoldText used to be available on UK Gold, but has since closed down.

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References

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External links

• Virgin Media Television
• Minotaur International