When “Dave” came along I thought it was a fairly silly name, but hey, it was replacing probably the worst channel name in the history of television (the aforementioned tongue twister that was “UKTVG2”), so it was due at least a chance to prove itself, no matter that “everyone knows a bloke called Dave” seemed a daft reason to name a channel.
Since then, I’ve been happy to be proven wrong; Dave has developed a strong identity for itself, separate from Gold (arguably to the extent that it’s displaced Gold as the UKTV flagship), with a good track record in original programming, and it gave us four more series of Red Dwarf, the last three of which were arguably better than the last two BBC commissioned ones.
The question I suppose is, capitalise on Dave’s strengths, or sacrifice them on the alter of UKTV as a whole? I know something would definitely be lost if they changed to “UKTV Dave” or similar.
Since then, I’ve been happy to be proven wrong; Dave has developed a strong identity for itself, separate from Gold (arguably to the extent that it’s displaced Gold as the UKTV flagship), with a good track record in original programming, and it gave us four more series of Red Dwarf, the last three of which were arguably better than the last two BBC commissioned ones.
The question I suppose is, capitalise on Dave’s strengths, or sacrifice them on the alter of UKTV as a whole? I know something would definitely be lost if they changed to “UKTV Dave” or similar.