UKTV Gold

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UKTV Gold

Launched	1 November 1992
Owned by	UKTV (BBC/Virgin Media Television)
Audience share	0.7% (0.4% for +1) (February 2007, [1])
Formerly called	UK Gold (until March 2004)
Sister channel(s)	UKTV G2
Timeshift service	UKTV Gold +1
Website	www.uktvgold.co.uk
Availability
Terrestrial
Top Up TV	Channel 17 (16:00-01:00 only)
Satellite
Sky Digital	Channel 109 Channel 110 (+1)
Cable
Virgin Media (NTL)	Channel 124 Channel 125 (+1)
Virgin Media (Telewest)	Channel 124 Channel 126 (+1)
WightCable	Channel 46/112
Homechoice	Channel 16

UKTV Gold, (previously known as UK Gold until March 8, 2004), is a British television channel, launched on November 1, 1992, currently available on Sky Digital, Virgin Media, and terrestrial subscription via Top Up TV. It is not available on standard Freeview boxes, however, despite the fact that many of its programmes were produced by the BBC.

It was also available through terrestrial prior to May 2002 on ITV Digital channel 32 and broadcast 24 hours a day. It also featured on the Xtraview pay-per-view system on weekdays between 7pm and 9pm. However, this service has since been discontinued.

1 History
2 Programmes
3 On-Screen Identity
- 3.1 Logos
4 External links

[edit] History

The channel launched on November 1, 1992 (coincidentally, the day before Channel 4's 10th birthday) as a joint venture between Thames Television and the BBC to show reruns of their 'classic' archive programming (UKTV Gold and its sister stations (see below) are now part of the UKTV network, owned jointly by Virgin Media Television (formerly Flextech) and the BBC).

The channel's major drawbacks in its early years were the insensitive placement of commercial breaks in BBC shows, and the heavy-handed editing of BBC programmes to fit commercial timeslots. The channel joined Sky's basic subscription package in 1993.

Initially broadcast on an analogue transponder from a SES Astra satellite at 19.2°E which was not primarily intended for UK reception, the channel used to be notorious for being marred with 'sparklies' in large parts of the UK.

UK Gold's success led to the creation of UKTV, still part-owned by the BBC, which operates several channels showing different types of archive programming. These included UK Style (home and lifestyle), UK Drama, UK Play/PlayUK (now defunct), UK Horizons (now defunct) and UK History, as well as the time-shifted UK Gold +1, and UK Gold Classics, soon renamed to UK Gold 2. UK Gold 2 originally screened morning programmes from UK Gold time-shifted to the evening of the same day, but was relaunched with a completely new programme lineup and renamed UKG² on November 12, 2003. Another channel, UK Living, was renamed LivingTV when it broke away from the joint BBC-Flextech ownership (now solely owned by Virgin Media Television).

On March 8, 2004 all of the UKTV channels changed their prefixes from UK to UKTV, and UK Horizons was split into two channels - UKTV Documentary and UKTV People.

On November 1, 2004 the time-shifted UKTV G2 +1 was launched.

The BBC still cuts programmes (mainly documentaries) for commercial timing on the UKTV's factual channels, None of the UKTV channels broadcasts in widescreen; programmes made in 16:9 format are screened in the compromise 14:9 semi-letterbox ratio.

An analogue teletext service known as GoldText used to be available on this channel, but has since closed down.

[edit] Programmes

The output of the channel is mainly British comedy programmes and sometimes feature length films. These are a combination of internally produced shows and repeats of shows from the BBC & ITV archive. UKTV Gold's programming includes:

[edit] On-Screen Identity

For the first few years, idents on UK Gold featured their computer generated dog mascot named "Goldie" posing with the UK Gold logo. The Goldie idents were kept until 1993 when they were replaced with a form-up of the first logo against a blue background. In 1994, UK Gold switched to a more fitting identity, featuring idents based off the forging of gold bars. The logo incidentally, was a gold bar itself too. Variations on this idea were used until the next logo revamp in 1997, alongside the launch of the UKTV network of channels. The new idents for UK Gold and UK Gold 2 (when it launched in 2000) were based off falling objects - there were many of one type of object falling through the top half, but only ones that were colored gold would fall through to the bottom half of the screen. In 2000, the theme changed again, this time to idents featuring light beams and fireworks. These idents would carry on through another logo change in 2001, going on to new live-action idents from 2002 to 2007. On April 4, 2007, UKTV Gold unveiled its new on-air identity which uses a 1970s classic to show the channel is "going back to its roots".[2] The new identity launches April 5 with 12 new idents.