BBC UKTV

BBC UKTV is a multi-channel broadcaster owned by the BBC. It was formed in 1997 and is one of the United Kingdom's largest television companies.

BBC UKTV's channels are available via digital satellite and cable subscriptions in the UK and Ireland. BBC Dave, BBC Drama, BBC Really and BBC Yesterday channels are also available in the UK on Freeview, the free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) service.

Most programmes on the channels are repeat broadcasts of BBC productions, although the entertainment channels also feature some programmes produced by other companies and BBC UKTV have also in recent years, commissioned a tiny minority of their own exclusive programmes. The channels themselves are played out from the BBC Television Centre in London.

The BBC UKTV channels have broadcast in widescreen since 31 January 2008, although some programmes originally made in 4:3 format are screened in the compromise 14:9 semi-letterbox format.

Origins (1992-1997)
BBC UKTV started as a single channel, BBC Gold.

BBC Gold launched on 1 November 1992, showing reruns of 'classic' archive programming from the archives of the BBC. In a sense, BBC Gold succeeded British Satellite Broadcasting's Galaxy channel that had originally held these rights from the BBC.

The launch of the BBC UKTV network (1997)
During 1996, the BBC planned to launch a new range of channels under the name BBC UKTV.

The new channels would be BBC-branded: BBC Showcase, for entertainment; BBC Horizon, for documentaries; BBC Style, for lifestyle; BBC Learning, for schools, and BBC Arena, for the arts, plus three other channels including BBC Catch-Up, for repeats of popular programmes within days of their original transmission, a dedicated BBC Sport channel, and a TV version of Radio 1.

BBC Showcase and BBC Learning, renamed BBC Choice and BBC Knowledge respectively before launch, became BBC channels without commercials, and Catch-Up, Sport, and R1TV never launched, but the other channels became part of the new BBC UKTV group also without commercials. The 'BBC' prefix was chosen for these new channels to use a common brand that was already a household name. The 'BBC UKTV' network launched on 1 November 1997 with three new channels; arts channel 'BBC Alibi (TV channel)BBC Arena', lifestyle channel 'BBC Style' and documentary channel 'BBC Horizons'. BBC Gold retained its name but received a new look in line with the rest of the network. The graphics and branding were similar to the ones used by the BBC channels. The new graphics for BBC UKTV were designed by the same company as the other channels, Lambie-Nairn. Shortly before launch, it was decided the channel BBC Living also owned by BBC was to be sold to Channel 4 and renamed 4Living, instead of becoming part of the new BBC UKTV network due to the similarity in programming between the channel and BBC Style.

Digital expansion (1998-2007)
With the launch of digital television in the UK brought about by Sky Digital and ONdigital in 1998, two new channels were launched to broadcast on the new platforms: 'BBC Gold Classics', a sister channel to UK Gold showing older shows previously shown on UK Gold, and 'BBC Play', a new comedy and music channel.

BBC Gold Classics was short lived however, and relaunched as BBC Gold 2 in April 1999. The new channel time-shifted the morning schedule of BBC Gold from 7 pm for those who could not watch it at the original time. Popular at first, it dwindled in ratings after a few years.

In order to boost its popularity, BBC Play was given a new look and new style of logo in November 2000, which the rest of the BBC channels would adopt in 2002. In November 2001, BBC Style's food programming was moved to a new channel named 'BBC Food'.

The rebranding of BBC Play failed to make the channel more popular, and on 30 September 2002 it was shut down. October saw the launch of the new free to view digital terrestrial platform Freeview replacing ITV Digital, and with it the new history channel 'BBC History', which was included in Freeview's license to operate the platform. BBC History took many of the history-related programming from BBC Horizons. In January 2003, BBC UKTV launched a lifestyle channel for Freeview called BBC Bright Ideas. However BBC Bright Ideas was not created for the same reasons as BBC Food and BBC History to allow other BBC channels to have more time to schedule other programming, but instead showed a mix of programming from BBC Style and BBC Food (and later BBC Gardens) for Freeview viewers, in order to promote the lifestyle BBC channels available on pay platforms.

BBC Gold 2 was relaunched with a completely new schedule and style as BBC G2 on 12 November 2003, taking on some output similar to what used to be on BBC Play before its closure, initially broadcasting from 8pm each night before later expanding to daytime.

On 8 March 2004, the network carried out a major rebranding scheme. BBC Horizons was split into two channels – BBC Documentary and BBC People.

In 2005, a new channel was launched, 'BBC Style Gardens', later renamed in 2007 to 'BBC Gardens'. Like BBC Food, it allowed BBC Style to focus more on its more home-oriented programming.

Network rebrand
In 2007, BBC G2 was renamed 'BBC Dave' and began broadcasting on Freeview, replacing BBC Bright Ideas, seen as an experiment in branding for the network. The name is said to be originated from the fact that "everyone knows a bloke called Dave", and that the name seems appropriate for a male-orientated channel.

On 11 June 2008, BBC UKTV announced that it was beginning the process of rebranding its channels, after the successful launch of BBC Dave.

The first stage of this rebranding began on 7 October 2008, when BBC Gold dropped its mixed entertainment schedule for pure comedy programming. BBC Drama became the crime drama channel BBC Alibi, and a new general entertainment channel called BBC Watch was launched. It was with this rebrand that non-crime drama (such as Doctor Who and Jonathan Creek) was transferred to BBC Watch.

2009 saw the rebranding of all of the remaining channels beginning in January with BBC Documentary's rebrand to BBC Eden, the name reflecting the nature programmes premiering on the channel. This was followed in February with BBC People becoming BBC Blighty, the new channel containing programming of the lives of the British population and the quirks of British society, and therefore explaining the slang name for Britain as the channel name. In March, BBC History was rebranded as BBC Yesterday, reflecting the channel's history-themed programming.

This was closely followed in April by the re-brand of BBC Style to BBC Home, the new channel retaining the previous DIY shows and home makeovers and also including the programming from BBC Gardens; however, this programming would follow a few weeks later in May, when BBC Gardens was closed. Its channel slot was taken by BBC Really, a new female and reality channel, similar to Channel 4's then named 4Living. The name Really was used because of the shocking nature of some of the programmes.

The final channel to be rebranded was BBC Food, on 22 June 2009 as BBC Good Food. In June 2009 a final minor tweak to these new brands occurred when, for promotional purposes, trailers began to use the same style and all channels began to use a rectangle-shaped variation of their logo to show that they were part of one network, making cross-channel promotion easier than previously.

On 14 June 2011, BBC UKTV announced it would be launching BBC Really on Freeview channel 20 on 2 August 2011. This resulted in the timeshift channel BBC Dave +1 broadcasting reduced hours of 02:00–04:00 on Freeview only to keep the EPG number available for future use. BBC Really was the third of BBC UKTV's ten channels to launch on Freeview.

BT Vision deal
On 22 March 2012, it was announced that BT Vision would offer UKTV original content on-demand from later in the day. As part of the deal, UKTV started streaming linear channels to BT Vision set top boxes in late 2012. The first three were BBC Watch, BBC Gold and BBC Alibi and it intends to launch further channels, such as BBC Good Food, BBC Eden and BBC Home. BBC Dave, BBC Really and BBC Yesterday will likely not launch on the service as they are already available on Freeview, which is available through the hybrid IPTV/Freeview BT set-top boxes.

Present
BBC UKTV's channels are available via satellite and cable in Ireland and the United Kingdom. In the UK, on digital terrestrial television, BBC Yesterday, BBC Dave, BBC Really and BBC Drama are available on the Freeview platform, and selected parts of BBC Gold, BBC Home and BBC Good Food were available through the now defunct Top Up TV service. From 2008 BBC UKTV are considering airing localised versions of their channels in the Irish market featuring local programming. They are also now considering HD versions of their channels in 2009, and have recently rebranded all of their channels.

BBC Watch is currently the flagship channel operated by the network. It is a general entertainment channel from UKTV that launched on 7 October 2008. Programmes like Total Wipeout USA and Torchwood are aired. From launch until 2010, the official 'mascot' was Blinky the eyeball, who is seen on the idents and website. From 2012, there has been a rebrand which shows things like smoke, hairballs, crystals and liquid fly out of the logo.

BBC Gold is the comedy channel operated by the network. UK Gold launched on 1 November 1992 as a channel by the BBC to show reruns of their classics archive programming, BBC Gold and its sister stations are now part of the BBC UKTV network. 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.

BBC Home was launched as BBC Style on 1 November 1997 with the main output focused on home improvements, DIY shows and Gardening Programmes that are a combination of internally produced shows and repeats of shows mainly from the BBC archive. Before the launch of BBC Good Food (then known as BBC Food), it also showed many cookery programmes, however these now all reside on the channel BBC Good Food. It is one of the key BBC UKTV channels, and is very well known.

BBC Eden and BBC Eden +1 (formerly BBC Documentary and +1) was launched on 8 March 2004, and focuses on documentaries like Planet Earth.It is on Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk TV, but not Freeview or Freesat. Its slogan is One amazing world, one amazing channel. The unveiling of the BBC Eden rebrand was 9 October 2008 but the actual relaunch was 26 January 2009.

BBC Really launched on 19 May 2009. The channel focuses entirely on Reality and Lifestyle shows, which were previously broadcast on BBC Style (Now `BBC Home`). In February 2005, BBC Style Gardens was launched moving all gardening content from BBC Style to the new channel. It lost recognition to BBC Style in early 2007 when it adopted the more generic name BBC Gardens, It is now closed, and BBC Really is in its place. It is available on Sky and Virgin Media. The Idents are a pop art comic design, with 4 idents, Changing Room, Cafe, Surgeon and Park Bench. The channel doesn't have a timeshift, nor does BBC Drama.

BBC Dave was launched by BBC UKTV, on 15 October 2007. It was announced in September 2007, that BBC G2 would relaunch and be renamed to Dave. BBC said the name of the channel was chosen because "everyone knows a bloke called Dave". The rebrand included the channel being available free-to-air on digital terrestrial platform, Freeview, replacing BBC Bright Ideas which only averaged 0.1% of the audience share. The move to Freeview saw BBC Dave launch in the bandwidth previously used by BBC Yesterday (Previously known as BBC History) which now uses the time limited (07:00–18:00) bandwidth once occupied by BBC Bright Ideas. BBC Dave is available daily, from 7 am to 3 am, on all platforms. It calls itself "the home of witty banter" and now uses Ralph Ineson and Phill Jupitus as announcers.

BBC Alibi is another channel operated by BBC UKTV and as the name suggests its main focus is on showing crime dramas mainly from the BBC archives. Originally launched as BBC Arena on 1 November 1997, as an arts channel, it was renamed as BBC Drama in 2000 and so shifted its focus on dramas after some disappointing initial ratings. On 2 May 2006, a new timeshift service called BBC Drama +1 was launched, to replace BBC People's timeshift channel. It has now renamed BBC Alibi in October 2008 and is now fully focused on crime dramas, with a murder theme appearing on-screen from October 2008. The logo has 3 colour variations and a fresh set of idents. It is on Sky and Virgin Media.

BBC Yesterday is the history channel from the BBC network. Previously known as BBC History until 2 March 2009, it launched on 30 October 2002, to coincide with the launch of Freeview. BBC Yesterday'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 on Freeview had previously been cut when BBC Dave launched, with transmissions finishing at 18:00, but were restored on 1 June 2010.

BBC Good Food launched on 5 November 2001 and 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 BBC Home until BBC Good Food was introduced. The BBC Good 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 BBC Good Food and some include videos taken from the demonstrations. It is named "BBC Good Food Channel" on the BBC website due to the fact that there is a magazine operated by BBC named Good Food.

BBC Drama launched on 8 July 2013 and is positioned as a home for British dramas from the last 40 years. The channel became the fourth BBC UKTV channel to launch on Freeview, after BBC Yesterday, BBC Dave and BBC Really.

October 2013 saw catch-up services for BBC Watch, BBC Gold BBC Dave and BBC Alibi appear on Sky Go, all BBC UKTV channels launched on Eircom’s eVision TV service and BBC Gold was launched on NowTV. The following month all channels went on to appear on Virgin TV Anywhere.

Former channels
BBC UKTV has also had many former channels which have been replaced by others. BBC G2 was replaced on all platforms except Freeview by Dave, which still carries all the same programming on 15 October 2007. Originally named BBC Gold Classics, it was launched when BBC Gold began to move towards newer programmes instead of older ones. From 2 April 1999, it was renamed to BBC Gold 2, and screened morning programmes from BBC Gold time-shifted to the evening of the same day. It was again relaunched with a completely new programme line-up and renamed BBC G2 on 12 November 2003. 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 BBC Play before that channel's closure. BBC Gardens closed down in May 2009, in favour of BBC Really.

Another channel, BBC Arena, closed on 31 March 2000 due to insufficient ratings, relaunched – originally with the same graphics – as BBC Drama. As said before initial ratings were disappointing and it was decided to relaunch the channel as BBC Drama, with a focus on showing dramas rather than general arts programme. The channel's main focus was on arts programming.

BBC Play, 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. It broadcast all day on the digital platforms but on the Sky Analogue platform (on the Astra 19.2°E satellites), it also broadcast between 1 am and 7 am 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 UK's comedy programming was moved to BBC Gold. BBC Gold 2, formerly BBC Gold Classics, closed in 2003 became BBC G2 and then Dave.

BBC Horizons closed in 2004 to create BBC People and BBC Documentary. The channel was mainly based on showing BBC documentaries and other factual programmes. 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 BBC Arena and BBC 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. BBC People +1 closed in 2006 to create BBC Drama +1.

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

Also note that there was a channel called BBC Living that was originally affiliated with the BBC Gold but did not become part of the BBC UKTV network, instead transferring to Channel 4 to be operated as a wholly owned company, and it changed its name to 4Living before the BBC UKTV network launched. Also an analogue teletext service known as Ceefax was available on BBC Gold, but has since closed down.

BBC Blighty closed on all platforms on 5 July 2013, three days ahead of the launch of BBC Drama. The channel originally launched as BBC People on 8 March 2004, replacing BBC Horizons, which closed the day before. The output of BBC Blighty was some factual programming of a lighter nature, such as Top Gear and docusoaps like Airport, and from February 2009, "British" shows like "My Brilliant Britain". The channel was available on Sky and Virgin Media. However, it was not available on Freeview, despite the majority of the programmes being made by the BBC.

Operating names
In the production logo screen at the end of BBC UKTV's original commissions, for the channels BBC Watch, BBC Gold and BBC Dave the name BBC Gold Services Ltd. is used instead of BBC UKTV, as all 3 channels spawned from the original BBC Gold channel. For the remaining channels, BBC Alibi, BBC Drama, BBC Eden, BBC Good Food, BBC Home, BBC Really and BBC Yesterday, the name BBC New Ventures Ltd. is used instead of BBC UKTV.

HD channels
BBC UKTV launched its first HD channel; BBC Good Food HD on 31 August 2010. The channel was originally available exclusively on Sky channel 283.

A second HD channel; BBC Eden HD launched on 4 October on Sky channel 559. Both channels are high-definition simulcasts of their standard definition counterparts.

BBC UKTV announced on 29 July 2011 that they would be launching three new HD channels, BBC Dave HD and BBC Watch HD launched in October 2011, and BBC Alibi HD launched in July 2012.

All five of BBC UKTV's HD channels were also added to Virgin's cable television service by 2012. BBC Eden HD and BBC Good Food HD were added on 7 October 2011, followed by BBC Dave HD on 10 October and BBC Watch HD on 12 October.