Just sprung into mind, so I thought I'd ask. I'm not too good on who owns certain satellite channels, and the one that I am a little confused by in particular is the UKTV chain. Does the BBC own it? BBC shows are always broadcast on it, yet, for instance, when the RBS highlights (from the BBC) were shown, the logo of the scorebar had been erased. Another factor is that there are regular break intervals. Any ideas?
UKTV is a unique partnership between BBC Worldwide and Flextech Television; the content division of Telewest Communications. Both established and prestigious players in the broadcasting industry. The UKTV Network is the second largest multi-channel broadcaster offering a vast array of quality programmes from highly successful originations along with a strong line up of well-known acquisitions.
Which gives it the ability to not only screen BBC progs but also ITV ones (like the Bill)
IMHO UKTV is a good thing, though its channel number is a bit large. UKTV History, Docs and People should be brought under one roof, Style and Food together, and Gold and G2 together.
Who owns National Geographic and the History Channel? I was under the impression that Sky has a stake in each of them... but then, they don't cross promote and genres covered often overlap.
IMHO UKTV is a good thing, though its channel number is a bit large. UKTV History, Docs and People should be brought under one roof, Style and Food together, and Gold and G2 together.
The original UKTV Network worked quite well - UK Gold, UK Style, UK Horizons and UK Arena still between them covered almost exactly the same genres which the modern 10-channel version does - in the 9 year history of the group the only time something was genuinely added was when UK Play launched - and it's now gone.
What started as a good idea has suffered from ridiculous levels of over-diversification which clearly isn't about to stop following the launch of UKTV Style Gardens (they clearly now have so many channels that they can't even be bothered to think of decent names for them).
I agree that things could do with being brought back together again now - Food/Style/Style Gardens worked absolutely fine when the same programming was all shown on Style, the split of UK Horizons into Documentary/People has offered no improvements, but sadly it will probably continue to diversify, next up will probably be all the comedy moving from UK Gold onto a new comedy channel (something which has been rumoured for years), leaving Gold showing bugger all but recent BBC repeats.
Who owns National Geographic and the History Channel? I was under the impression that Sky has a stake in each of them... but then, they don't cross promote and genres covered often overlap.
my understanding is that sky owns a stake in both (as much as 50% in nat geographic iirc) and as part of this deal, sky handles the playout and transmission part of the operation.
i seem to remember watching the history channel late one evening and when it closed down it played the same piece of music you used to hear when sky sports shutdown for the night which seems to verify that is indeed a sky channel.
I originally thought that the History Channel was Sky-owned, but when you look at the number of international versions available across Europe then perhaps it's not. Maybe they have the same arrangement with the History Channel as exists with Nat Geo.