Timeline of ITV Digital Channels

This is a timeline of the British company ITV Digital Channels and its predecessors Granada Sky Broadcasting and Carlton Communications, and digital channels of other ITV-related companies. The timeline does not include events related to ITV network's flagship channel (ITV1 / STV / UTV).

1990s

• 1995
• 13 December - Granada announces that it will form a joint-venture with BSkyB, known as Granada Sky Broadcasting. The venture will consist of seven channels, known as Health and Beauty, Home and Garden, Food and Wine, Granada Good Life, Granada Men and Motoring, Granada Talk TV, and Granada TV Shopping Guide. The flagship channel, Granada Gold Plus, would function as a rival to the BBC and Flextech's UK Gold and air programmes from the Granada Television and London Weekend Television archives. All seven channels are announced to launch on the Sky Multichannels service in 1996.[1]

• 1996
• January - Carlton Communications purchases cable television channel SelecTV for £5.2 million.[2] The deal does not include the channel's parent company or their production and distribution divisions, which are sold separately to Pearson Television.[3]
• 2 September – Carlton Food Network launches. It broadcasts on weekday afternoons on cable.
• 1 October – The GSkyB venture officially launches as a four-channel network - archive channel Granada Plus, Men's channel Granada Men & Motors, chat show channel Granada Talk TV, and lifestyle channel Granada Good Life. The remaining channels planned are instead launched as timeshared strands within Good Life schedule, and are known as Granada Food & Wine, Granada Health & Beauty, Granada TV High Street and Granada Home & Garden.
• 1 November – A joint venture between SMG and BSkyB results in the launch of Sky Scottish. Airing for two hours on Sky between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm, the channel was targeted towards Scots who lived outside Scotland.

• 1997
• 14 February - SelecTV relaunches as Carlton Select.
• 31 August – Granada Talk TV stops broadcasting.
• 8 October - Granada Media considers selling a stake in GSkyB. The company proclaimed that the venture was costing the company millions of pounds.[4]

• 1998
• 9 April - BSkyB and SMG agree to terminate their Sky Scottish joint-venture due to poor viewing figures.[5]
• 1 May – The GSkyB networks gain newly refreshed looks, concluding with the relaunch of Granada Good Life as Granada Breeze, which sees the abolition of the four segments.[6]
• 31 May – Sky Scottish stops broadcasting.[7]
• 10 August - The launch of MUTV is officially announced. The channel, which is the first in the world to be exclusively dedicated to a single football club (Manchester United), is a joint venture between Granada, BSkyB, and the club; each holding a 33.3% stake.[8]

• 1999
• 4 January – GMTV2 launches during the breakfast downtime of ITV2.[10]
• 30 April – SMG launches S2 on ONDigital.[11]
• 28 June – Ulster Television plc launches UTV's sister channel, TV You. The channel mainly consisted of a simulcast of ITV2 with opt-outs for local programming.
• September – Champions ON 28 and Champions ON 99 launch on the ONdigital service to provide live and recorded coverage of the UEFA Champions League.
• 4 October - MUTV ceases broadcast on cable platforms due to low subscriber numbers. The Sky Digital version continues to operate.

2000s

• 2000
• 31 January – Carlton Kids and Carlton World stop broadcasting, with the two new Discovery networks taking over the following day.
• 1 March – Carlton Select stops broadcasting, with Carlton Food Network taking over afterward, thereby becoming an all day service.
• 1 May – ONrequest launches to provide pay-per-view content for OnDigital viewers.
• 1 August – The ITN News Channel goes on the air. The channel is a joint venture between ITN and NTL.[15]
• September – ONsport launches. It replaces Champions on 28 and Champions on 99 which had reflected the channel numbers these were broadcast on. These channels are rebranded as ONsport 1 and ONsport 2 after ONdigital had purchased the rights to the ATP Masters Series. Whilst ONsport 1 broadcasts 24 hours a day, ONsport 2 timeshares with Carlton Cinema and is only on air to provide coverage of an alternate Champions League match.

2010s

• 2010
• 1 April – Men & Motors and the full-time version of ITV HD stop broadcasting.
• 2 April – the HD version of ITV1 launches.
• 7 October – ITV2 HD launches.
• 15 November – ITV3 HD and ITV4 HD launch.

• 2011
• 11 January – ITV +1 is launched.
• 14 November – ITV and JML Direct launch home shopping channel The Zone.

• 2013
• 1 October – The Zone becomes The Store.[39]

2020s

• 2020
• 24 January – ITV announces that it has closed its pay-per-view service ITV Box Office.[45]
• 29 July – Merit launches as an evening service showing gardening and cookery programmes[46] but less than a month after its launch, ITV sells the channel to Sky Group.[47]

• 2022
• 8 December — ITVX launches.

See also

• Timeline of ITV