Rebranded Channels

[Brekkie]

With the Sony Channel and Sony Movies becoming Great! TV and Great! Movies respectively today it's got me thinking about other channels which had to rebrand following an acquisition, often quite quickly and sometimes quite cheap and cheerfully in the world of digital TV.

Virgin1 to Channel One is a noteable one from the early years of Freeview when Sky bought Virgin's small bouquet of channel, and more recently across the water we saw TV3 but out UTV Ireland, rebranding it as be3 - with a subsequent rebrand of all their channels following by Virgin Media. And the newly acquired Sony Channel portfolio itself has quite a history of being bought and rebranded over the years with Movies4men, True Entertainment, True Movies and More Than Movies/Movie Mix.

I'm sure there must be many more too - anyone got more to add?

[Neil Jones]

Could we count BSB?

Merged with Sky in 1990 and most of the BSB channels were replaced with Sky equivalents - the only two that survived in from BSB's launch was Movies and Sports - Galaxy became what is now Sky One (IIRC it had a different name in 1990), Now became Sky News and at least one of them vanished altogether.

[Amber Avenger]

Not sure anyone watching UK Living nearly 30 years ago would pick Sky Witness out of the current EPG as the one technically being the same channel. Lots of variation on the Living name for many years of course through the various owners but certainly must be up there for one of the biggest overall departures from the original channel in the end.

[Brekkie]

Could we count BSB?

Merged with Sky in 1990 and most of the BSB channels were replaced with Sky equivalents - the only two that survived in from BSB's launch was Movies and Sports - Galaxy became what is now Sky One (IIRC it had a different name in 1990), Now became Sky News and at least one of them vanished altogether.

One thing I never understood is why The Movie Channel name lasted so long considering the rebranding of other channels.

Sky Movies a good example of channels frequently rebranding without changing ownership, especially in the early years of Sky Digital.

[London Lite]

EBN into CNBC is a possible one too. It was a merger at first with CNBC moving into EBN's studios and taking some of EBN's programming such as Media Report.

[Humphrey Hacker]

Sky Arts forming from NOW's arts programming?

[Brekkie]

I think Sky Arts was a rebrand of Artsworld.

[Stuart]

Could we count BSB?

Merged with Sky in 1990 and most of the BSB channels were replaced with Sky equivalents - the only two that survived in from BSB's launch was Movies and Sports - Galaxy became what is now Sky One (IIRC it had a different name in 1990), Now became Sky News and at least one of them vanished altogether.

To be fair, all the channels were branded as "British Sky Broadcasting" for a number of years following the merger.

I think 'The Movie Channel' (albeit under the BSkyB brand) stayed as such for a while because of the rights they had purchased. It later became Moviemax, then Sky began endlessly tinkering with movie channel names. I lost track when we had 'Sky Movies Screen 9'. :o

[Rdd]

Could we count BSB?

Merged with Sky in 1990 and most of the BSB channels were replaced with Sky equivalents - the only two that survived in from BSB's launch was Movies and Sports - Galaxy became what is now Sky One (IIRC it had a different name in 1990), Now became Sky News and at least one of them vanished altogether.

Not really the same, because Sky One and Sky News both existed prior to the merger - while it might have looked like a rebrand to BSB customers, Astra viewers and cable customers would have barely noticed a change apart from the new “British Sky Broadcasting” strap line on the idents. Only the Sports Channel to Sky Sports was really a rebrand as such. The Movie Channel got a new logo but kept the same name for eight more years.

[London Lite]

I think Sky Arts was a rebrand of Artsworld.

It was, they acquired Artsworld and their rich content.

[Andrew Wood]

The UKTV channels - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKTV#Former

[nwtv2003]

Could we count BSB?

Merged with Sky in 1990 and most of the BSB channels were replaced with Sky equivalents - the only two that survived in from BSB's launch was Movies and Sports - Galaxy became what is now Sky One (IIRC it had a different name in 1990), Now became Sky News and at least one of them vanished altogether.

To be fair, all the channels were branded as "British Sky Broadcasting" for a number of years following the merger.

I think 'The Movie Channel' (albeit under the BSkyB brand) stayed as such for a while because of the rights they had purchased. It later became Moviemax, then Sky began endlessly tinkering with movie channel names. I lost track when we had 'Sky Movies Screen 9'. :o

Ok so... originally we had :

Originally you had Sky Movies, The Movie Channel and Sky Movies Gold. They all launched in 1989, 1990 and 1992 respectively until 1997.

Then they became Sky Movies Screen 1-2 and Sky Movies Gold. This was from 1997-98.

Then this is where things start to get tricky, Screen 2 became Sky Premier, Screen 1 became Sky Moviemax and Gold became Sky Cinema, this was from 1998 to 2002.

All three brands become Sky Movies Premier, Sky Movies Max and Sky Movies Cinema in 2002.

In 2003, both the Premier and Max brands were scrapped in favour Sky Movies 1-9. Premier became Sky Movies 1, Max became Sky Movies 2, and their spin off channels filled the remaining numbers in odds/evens respectively, ie Sky Movies 3 used to be Premier 2.

Sky Movies Cinema became Sky Cinema 1 and Sky Cinema 2.

Further rebrand in 2007, similar to the type of channels we have now, then a total rebrand to Sky Cinema in 2016. I’ve lost track of how many of those channels have changed or been and gone.

[channelbox]

In 2009, when TV3 bought Irish entertainment station Channel 6, it was rebranded as 3e. It was really nothing more than a name change, as many of the same programmes stayed.

https://youtu.be/wFSONA41-LU

Of course, Virgin Media Two subsequently replaced 3e in 2018, which has led to the focus on youth entertainment being scrapped, mostly in favour of (some) Channel 5 & (lots of) ITV repeats.

[Brekkie]

C4 buying into Bauer and rebranding The Hits as 4Music is another one.

[Neil Jones]

Further rebrand in 2007, similar to the type of channels we have now, then a total rebrand to Sky Cinema in 2016. I’ve lost track of how many of those channels have changed or been and gone.

The trend since Sky Cinema is pop-up channels around a theme, the better known example is probably when Sky Cinema Christmas comes along and sits there for the best part of six weeks.

This pop-up channel thing gets silly sometimes when they dedicate a channel to a specific film franchise, and that franchise only has three films in it. Sky Cinema Back To The Future and Sky Cinema Jurassic are two examples, the latter only airing the first three films IIRC. If its something more wider, then fine.

The other "joke" is Groundhog Day on, well, Groundhog Day basically.

Further rebrand in 2007, similar to the type of channels we have now, then a total rebrand to Sky Cinema in 2016. I’ve lost track of how many of those channels have changed or been and gone.

The trend since Sky Cinema is pop-up channels around a theme, the better known example is probably when Sky Cinema Christmas comes along and sits there for the best part of six weeks.

This pop-up channel thing gets silly sometimes when they dedicate a channel to a specific film franchise, and that franchise only has three films in it. Sky Cinema Back To The Future and Sky Cinema Jurassic are two examples, the latter only airing the first three films IIRC. If its something more wider, then fine.

The other "joke" is Groundhog Day on, well, Groundhog Day basically.

(see what I did there? )