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UKTV

UKTV is a joint venture between the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, and Virgin Media owned Virgin Media Television, formerly Flextech Television. UKTV is one of the United Kingdom's largest television companies.

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.

Most programmes on UKTV's channels are repeat broadcasts of BBC productions (although the entertainment channels also feature programmes made by other companies), and the channels themselves are played out by Red Bee Media (formerly BBC Broadcast) from their 'Broadcast Centre' in West London.

Before 31 January 2008 all UKTV output was in 4:3 ratio, programmes originally produced in 16:9 widescreen format were cut down to a 14:9 letterbox format. Since that date UKTV began broadcasting all advertising, its continuity and some recently purchased programme material in the full 16:9 format. From 2008 UKTV are considering airing localised versions of their channels in the Republic of Ireland market featuring local advertisements and sponsorship.^{[citation needed]}

Channels

For more information on UKTV channels and defunct channels, see Virgin Media Television#UKTV

With the UKTV brand

• UKTV Documentary
• UKTV Drama
• UKTV Food
• UKTV Gardens
• UKTV Gold
• UKTV History
• UKTV People
• UKTV Style

Without the UKTV brand

• Dave

Timeshift services

Most of the channels have timeshift services apart from UKTV Gardens and UKTV People (Although the latter had one for a while until it closed down to make way for UKTV Drama +1). As well as having a +1 hour time-shift channel, UKTV Style also has UKTV Style 2 (+2 hour) time-shifted channel, which launched on 12 December 2007.

Defunct channels

• UK Arena - focused on arts programming. Closed in 2000 due to insufficient ratings, relaunched — originally with the same graphics — as UK Drama, see above
• Play UK (formerly UK Play) — closed in 2002 due to low ratings because of the closure of ITV Digital
• UK Gold 2 (formerly UK Gold Classics) - closed in 2003, became UKG2 (later UKTV G2 and then Dave)
• UK Horizons - closed in 2004 to create UKTV People and UKTV Documentary
• 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/Dave going onto Freeview

UK Horizons and UK Arena were named after the BBC's flagship science and arts documentaries, Horizon and Arena.

Note that there was a channel called UK Living that was originally affiliated with UK Gold but did not become part of the UKTV network, it changed its name to LivingTV before the UKTV network launched.

External links

• UKTV.co.uk
• BBC
• Virgin Media Television
• Top Up TV
• The TV Room looks at presentation/branding on the UKTV channels