CW
Wellbeing was Boot's main promotional tool at the time, with many outlets for the Wellbeing brand. The TV channel was indeed a venture between Granada and Boots, but the Wellbeing brand itself survived - indeed Boots still have a line of Wellbeing branded products.
cwathen
Founding member
Quote:
Yes but it was part owned by Granada I think, it was done from Yorkshire Television studios and with some YTV presenters.
Wellbeing was Boot's main promotional tool at the time, with many outlets for the Wellbeing brand. The TV channel was indeed a venture between Granada and Boots, but the Wellbeing brand itself survived - indeed Boots still have a line of Wellbeing branded products.
CW
The other one was Carlton Select. The Taste CFN came about when they undertook a joint deal with a supermarket (Sainsburys I think) to help finance the channel. Sainsburys pulled out, leaving Carlton with no choice but to close it down.
The big problem with Carlton's channels was that they never secured carriage on Sky Digital for them and thus their existance revolved around On Digital (the cable audiences were not high enough to sustain them). Thus, when On Digital did some shunting around to attract more prominent channels (like when they added Discovery Kids and Wings) the Carlton channels were given the boot from the platform, and thus out of existance.
Carlton Cinema was the last one to go, closing earlier this year. It wasn't actually bad for a non premium films channel, and could have survived if only they had carried it on Sky. But no, it was still only DTT and cable and once ITV Digital closed down it's cable audience was too small to justify it's continuation.
The Carlton channels were in general not a bad bunch, but turned into failures through the misguided decision not to have them on Dsat.
cwathen
Founding member
Quote:
Carlton seemed to have lost all their cable channels too. I recall they used to have Carlton World, Carlton Kids, Carlton Food Network (Which became 'Taste CFN' for a bit) and of course, Carlton Cinema. And maybe another one, although I'm not sure.
The other one was Carlton Select. The Taste CFN came about when they undertook a joint deal with a supermarket (Sainsburys I think) to help finance the channel. Sainsburys pulled out, leaving Carlton with no choice but to close it down.
The big problem with Carlton's channels was that they never secured carriage on Sky Digital for them and thus their existance revolved around On Digital (the cable audiences were not high enough to sustain them). Thus, when On Digital did some shunting around to attract more prominent channels (like when they added Discovery Kids and Wings) the Carlton channels were given the boot from the platform, and thus out of existance.
Carlton Cinema was the last one to go, closing earlier this year. It wasn't actually bad for a non premium films channel, and could have survived if only they had carried it on Sky. But no, it was still only DTT and cable and once ITV Digital closed down it's cable audience was too small to justify it's continuation.
The Carlton channels were in general not a bad bunch, but turned into failures through the misguided decision not to have them on Dsat.
LU
Indeed. The same could be said for the ITV Sport channel, I don't know what they were thinking snubbing Sky, when it was getting audiences around the 1000, 2000 mark. I suppose they thought it would be a customer puller, but when you look back, you realise Carlton and Granada were cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
cwathen posted:
The Carlton channels were in general not a bad bunch, but turned into failures through the misguided decision not to have them on Dsat.
Indeed. The same could be said for the ITV Sport channel, I don't know what they were thinking snubbing Sky, when it was getting audiences around the 1000, 2000 mark. I suppose they thought it would be a customer puller, but when you look back, you realise Carlton and Granada were cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
CW
It was supposed to be the centrepiece of the ITV Digital relaunch. They really believed that people would drop Sky in favour of ITVD over the sports channel.
The problem of course was that it was a premium channel without premium content (champion's league and endless editions of 'Do I not know that') do not make a premium channel, on an unpopular platform.
It was of course a fatal mistake also to have paid so much for the rights; someone calculated that with the number of viewers they had, it would actually be cheaper for ITV Sport Channel to have collected them from their house, driven them to the game to watch it live (paying for their ticket of course), put them up in a luxury hotel overnight, and then drive them home again than it was to televise the games.
If it had miraculously survived, the sport channel would doubtless have ended up on Sky - it WAS being carried on one of their multiplexes, just never officially and no one could decode it.
cwathen
Founding member
Quote:
Indeed. The same could be said for the ITV Sport channel, I don't know what they were thinking snubbing Sky, when it was getting audiences around the 1000, 2000 mark. I suppose they thought it would be a customer puller, but when you look back, you realise Carlton and Granada were cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
It was supposed to be the centrepiece of the ITV Digital relaunch. They really believed that people would drop Sky in favour of ITVD over the sports channel.
The problem of course was that it was a premium channel without premium content (champion's league and endless editions of 'Do I not know that') do not make a premium channel, on an unpopular platform.
It was of course a fatal mistake also to have paid so much for the rights; someone calculated that with the number of viewers they had, it would actually be cheaper for ITV Sport Channel to have collected them from their house, driven them to the game to watch it live (paying for their ticket of course), put them up in a luxury hotel overnight, and then drive them home again than it was to televise the games.
If it had miraculously survived, the sport channel would doubtless have ended up on Sky - it WAS being carried on one of their multiplexes, just never officially and no one could decode it.
CW
At the time it was planned, Sky One was getting quite full, and hence they wanted Sky 2 to take the strain off the channel and allow their programming to breath. The problem is, Fox Kids UK came along and took away most of their children's programming, leaving huge gaps in the schedule. The programming that had been moved off Sky One onto Sky 2 could no longer be spared, the programming that was exclusive to Sky 2 was badly needed on Sky One, and so both channels were then loosing out with them having quite bare schedules (although that was nothing compared to Sky One's standard fare today).
Then came the deal to have a UK version of the National Geographic Channel, it was much more worthwhile, the reason for having Sky 2 had disappeared, and so it was quite rightly scrapped after a year (I think it actually lasted a year to the day) and replaced with National Geographic.
cwathen
Founding member
Quote:
Going along the lines of old channels.
What happened to SKY 2?
What happened to SKY 2?
At the time it was planned, Sky One was getting quite full, and hence they wanted Sky 2 to take the strain off the channel and allow their programming to breath. The problem is, Fox Kids UK came along and took away most of their children's programming, leaving huge gaps in the schedule. The programming that had been moved off Sky One onto Sky 2 could no longer be spared, the programming that was exclusive to Sky 2 was badly needed on Sky One, and so both channels were then loosing out with them having quite bare schedules (although that was nothing compared to Sky One's standard fare today).
Then came the deal to have a UK version of the National Geographic Channel, it was much more worthwhile, the reason for having Sky 2 had disappeared, and so it was quite rightly scrapped after a year (I think it actually lasted a year to the day) and replaced with National Geographic.
:-(
At the time it was planned, Sky One was getting quite full, and hence they wanted Sky 2 to take the strain off the channel and allow their programming to breath. The problem is, Fox Kids UK came along and took away most of their children's programming, leaving huge gaps in the schedule. The programming that had been moved off Sky One onto Sky 2 could no longer be spared, the programming that was exclusive to Sky 2 was badly needed on Sky One, and so both channels were then loosing out with them having quite bare schedules (although that was nothing compared to Sky One's standard fare today).
Then came the deal to have a UK version of the National Geographic Channel, it was much more worthwhile, the reason for having Sky 2 had disappeared, and so it was quite rightly scrapped after a year (I think it actually lasted a year to the day) and replaced with National Geographic.
Thanks for the info.
A former member
cwathen posted:
Quote:
Going along the lines of old channels.
What happened to SKY 2?
What happened to SKY 2?
At the time it was planned, Sky One was getting quite full, and hence they wanted Sky 2 to take the strain off the channel and allow their programming to breath. The problem is, Fox Kids UK came along and took away most of their children's programming, leaving huge gaps in the schedule. The programming that had been moved off Sky One onto Sky 2 could no longer be spared, the programming that was exclusive to Sky 2 was badly needed on Sky One, and so both channels were then loosing out with them having quite bare schedules (although that was nothing compared to Sky One's standard fare today).
Then came the deal to have a UK version of the National Geographic Channel, it was much more worthwhile, the reason for having Sky 2 had disappeared, and so it was quite rightly scrapped after a year (I think it actually lasted a year to the day) and replaced with National Geographic.
Thanks for the info.