TV Channel Closures

Debbie King wins the prize for shortest lived show surely, her first and final episode of The Debbie King Show went out on ITV Play the same night the channel finished, all of three hours.

This was a strange situation because ITV had already said earlier in the day that the channel was closing but King's show still went ahead regardless.

Host The Week on Channel 4 in 2017 lasted for 1 episode. A full series was commissioned but after the first episode it was scrapped due to terrible ratings.

I think it depends what parameters we want to use to define "shortest".

Launching a new show on a channel that the network had already decreed to close earlier the same day pretty much guarantees its limited lifespan, whereas there are no end of TV shows that were commissioned for x episode runs and didn't air past the first episode for whatever reason.

At the time the line was the channel was being "suspended" for an investigation, with the hope it would resume at a later date. Then Michael Grade decided it was a good opportunity to wipe the slate clean and not be associated with that kind of thing anymore. So I imagine at the time they thought it would resume at some point.

Here’s one from America that I love because it’s just so morbid...

This was one of my uploads and very much remember that ending. When the curtain drew the channel faded to black and the DOG remained on screen for a good 20 minutes after the closure, before being replaced by an NTL generated caption. It was also the last Carlton channel to go off air.

I guess for such an iconic and well-loved station as Thames, they had to have a big send-off. When ten-a-penny digital channels come and go on a weekly basis these days, it seems hardly worth a mention.

Did anyone see the 1999 closure of L!VE TV? On its last few months they were clearly running on an even more threadbare budget than usual, with no advertisments running at all between programmes - just a holding slide and music like early 1980s Channel 4. They did have a new look at least styled "(li)ve tv" but I imagine they just disappeared one day without ceremony. I remember the yellow Cable & Wireless slide saying "This channel has ceased operations" lasting for a while.

Yes. They showed a highlights reel from their years on the air as their final piece. On NTL it was replaced with another channel showing The Channel Guide.

There was also the short lived rebrand of CFN (Carlton Food Network) to Taste.CFN following the very short partnership with Sainsburys. Here's a clip of their final closedown (when Carlton Cinema would start, they timeshared).



Also does anyone remember when ITV Sport went bust and Premier League matches had to be screened on the remaining franchise channels? Was quite bizarre seeing ITV teasing ahead to matches being shown on Granada Plus and the ITV News channel.

I've not seen the ITV News closure for a while, and looking back it seems a little odd to me that there is a real sense of everything they do coming to an end. Of course, there'd be job losses and personal feelings of regret and sadness – but I'd still expect even a line of 'we will still be around on ITV1' etc etc. Maybe that's just me, though.

Such an appropriate piece of music to end with

bbc 3 RIP