Men and Motors to launch on Freeview in May

Wait a bit longer and it turns into a garish red "mm" logo filling the screen with "coming soon" in a horrid white font underneath!

The press release from ITV, is on the ITV Sales website. The channel launches 2nd May.

21st April 2005: From Monday May 2nd, the new look Men and Motors will launch on Freeview.The relaunched Men and Motors channel will contain entertainment based programming and will feature lifestyle shows that will quickly become appointment to view TV, appealing to a predominantly young male audience.

Key genres include:

· Motoring Entertainment Shows – e.g. Sold in 60 Seconds, Natural Born Racers, Wrecks to Riches, Full Throttle Famous, Great Cars, Learner Driver, Troy’s Story by Ewan McGregor

· Police and Extreme Shows – e.g. Getaway Drivers, Crime Fighters, World’s Most Dangerous Roads, Serious Crash Unit, Carnage

· General Entertainment – e.g. The Professionals, The Sweeney, Miami Vice

· Humorous clip shows – e.g. Lovers Caught on Tape, Steve-O, Crash Stunt Idiots

· Fighting - Cage Rage, Carmen Electra’s Naked Women’s Wrestling, British Bruisers - Hardcore Martial Arts, K-1

· Observational Shows with adult content – e.g. Club Reps Uncut, UK Porn Exposed, Sex and Shopping, Sex Lives, Red Light Districts

· Late Night Comedy – e.g. Eddie Murphy Raw, Roy Chubby Brown, Mike Reid

· Event based shows – e.g. Exclusive coverage of The Isle of Man TT races

Men and Motors will be the ultimate men’s lifestyle channel. It will be the home of the best in motoring and entertainment, late night comedy, fighting, and observational shows with adult content.

“With an impressive line-up of late night comedy and exciting new commissions, Men and Motors should quickly become a firm favourite with the multi-channel young male viewer,” Said Joe Talbot, Men and Motors commissioning editor.

http://www.itvsales.com

Oh well at least The Sweeney will be coming back on Men & Motors. It doesn't sound too different than what it does now. Though it'll be interesting to see how well it will do on Freeview, as this would be a first for Freeview to have a channel like this on all day, offering very lad-ish programmes.

Dunno about you, but they could take a couple of programming gambles with the "new look" Men and Motors . . .

Move the "Late Show with David Letterman" from ITV2 over to MM. It might have a chance of decent timeslot!
Since they're planning to show some classic action drama stuff, how about Knight Rider ? I know Bravo has the
rights to KR at the moment, but that didn't stop Plus from sharing Murder She Wrote with BBC ONE! And let's face
it, with Knight Rider, the star of the show is a car, and it is a classic (albeit a bit OTT and far fetched) TV show

Freeview is turning into a right old red light district what with Television X, Red Hot and now Men & Motors.

So how long until Men and Motors gets renamed ITV4. After ITV axed (Granada) Plus at a moments notice nothing would suprise me, particularly if it had no apparent warning.

Oh and as for the placeholder...
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/menmotorsoon.jpg

That cap looks like it's from the 70s!

I still expect this to become ITV4 - the assertion that it won't is nothing more than a Media Guardian article (which could be written out of nothing) and a load of hot air on Digital Spy.

It makes no sense for it not to; ITV plc want to launch a third channel and have ITV4 for one reason and one reason only; the BBC's brand numerically extends to 4 so they think theirs should too. I don't honestly think they care what goes on the channel, so long as it exists. Buying out Sky's share of Plus so that they could rework it and relaunch it as ITV3 was a simple and obvious way to get partway there.

Renaming Men&Motors to ITV4 is again an obvious way to get to their 'fourth' (third actually) channel up and running. Why spend time and money improving Men&Motors (and I have to say, it's new lineup does look quite an improvement on it's present incarnation) only to allow it to continue in the long term as a standalone brand, leaving ITV4 either in direct competition with Men&Motors (if they continue to want to launch ITV4 as a young male oriented channel) or throwing them back to square one with it if they don't.

I'd imagine continuing with the Men&Motors brand for now is due to some conflict with Sky; at present Men&Motors is still owned and operated by GSkyB Ltd rather than ITV plc. Although the Plus>ITV3 deal did end the joint venture with Sky, it is possible that Sky still have some sort of claim to GSkyB which isn't yet finalised and until it is they can't rename it to ITV4. I still firmly expect Men&Motors to be using the ITV4 brand by the end of the year.

As to the content itself, it kind of reminds me of 1999/2000 Bravo, when it was partway through it's transition from one genre to another leaving Gerry Anderson sci-fi running on the same channel as Girls get p*ssed in Ibiza 3

Also the problem that there is no space left on Freeview for ITV 4 if M&M continues, makes you think it will morph.

Not necessarily as ITV brought out Sky's stake in GSkyB, therefore the whole of GSkyB is owned by ITV Plc.

Couldn't it be that continuing with the Men&Motors brand for now is about brand awareness. I know ITV is a well know brand, but alot of people (even those without multi-channel TV) have probably heard of Men&Motors, and will have a basic idea of what the channel is about.

Then later in the year they'll quietly change the name to ITV4.

Well ITV have recently announced changes at the end of the year, colour change etc. It would be sensible if they can't fit another channel on DTT to morph MM then into ITV4. Surly?

Joel.
Today it's apple and pears