Timeshifted Channels

Here's a simple question:

Which channel was the first to launch a time-shifted (+1) channel?
Was it Discovery or UKGold? It might not be either, can't remember.

I like them, gives a chance to catch up and an alternate choice of viewing.

Top marks to the person who saw the potential for the channels.

I'd be very certain that the first +1 channel was Discovery, which came on air in August 1998, when they relaunched Discovery, Home & Lesuire and Animal Planet. They also launched Discovery +1, Sci-Trek, Travel & Adventure and Civilisations. They kept running these promos for ages during 1998 and they were quite good. But in 1999, more channels adapted to this such as Nickelodeon, Fox Kids, The History Channel and I think National Geographic too. Then eventually tons more being launched and the most newest being E4 +1.

I don't see much point in some +1 channels really because if you wait long enough anyway, the same material comes up again in a different timeslot on the main channel anyway.

Key examples include Fox Kids, Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. All their programmes are repeats anyway - none of them need more one showing a day let alone two hours to understand - how many times has Clarissa Explains It All (A Nick US prog from 1991) gone round through Nick UK by now for example? Same with Mellisa Joan Hart's other ventures.

Having said that though, other types of material is more suited I think to the +1 era. Like the History Channel where if you get distracted by the phone, you won't understand the entire story. So catch the missing bits next hour. I'd say the same for the Biography channel if they had one but I never know who half the people are who they show bios of.

I'm pretty sure that Cartoon Network+1 was the first, there right from the start of Sky Digital.

Discovery wasn't that far behind though

I suggest that Bid-Up TV and BBC News 24 should set up a +1 channel.

If I may just develop your idea there, I think that BBC NEWS 24 should in fact develop a -1 channel, whereby the news is predicted one hour before it happens, followed by an innovative new gameshow format to review which presenter got closest to actual world events. Losing presenters are brutally murdered using methods chosen by the public through BBCi and SMS voting.

Since the whole channel will then be devoted to following this gameshow format, the new ticker will then be the sole format of delivering accurate, rolling news. However, most will agree that sitting reading a continuous line of text for half an hour would be infinitely more interesting than watching N24 as it currently stands.

This is the kind of innovation that N24 needs - it's got glamour, all-important interactivity, an element of unpredictability, a dose of humour, and above all, the slow and torturous deaths of BBC newsreaders.

Since these channels are showing what happened on the main channel one hour ago, it seems to me more logical that these channels should be called say UK Gold -1 anyway.

And in any case, Discovery UK wasn't the first -- it was (possibly) the first in the UK but the idea was stolen from the US and other markets. Who knows what the actual first one was? I seem to recall reading that US cable companies had this kind of thing back in the 80s.

You couldn't run a +1 Bid-up.tv channel as the goods would already have been sold in the auction an hour previously.

IIRC this was already discussed at the BBC live on air:

BBC News

Does anyone know how they actually work?

Is it literally a case of having a machine that records the output of the +0 channel, buffers it and plays it back an hour later; adverts, trailers, continuity and all?

Or is it all done from a separate playout line, meaning that although the programmes are an hour behind, they could slot in different adverts & trailers?

Just curious.

Oh thanks for pointing that out.

Almost certain it's just done by server.
The output is recorded on 1 server 'port' and then an hour later played back
by another. The clip on the server is looped so that after something is played out it is recorded over.

No idea what happens if the equipment fails or requires a reset.