66-462: Plus was a digital channel run by Granada Sky Broadcasting . It was launched on 1 October 1996 under the original name of Granada Plus , and during its availability it underwent successive rebrands as G Plus , G+ and then simply Plus . However, it remained widely referred to by the public at large by its original name. On 1 November 2004, it was permanently closed down by ITV plc in an attempt to bring its replacement, ITV3 , onto Sky. Granada Plus
132-758: A GSB logo with looped music, before cutting into a test card asking viewers to move to ITV3. Transmission of Plus officially ceased at 5:15pm, when it was replaced by holding slides for ITV3. The channel was replaced on digital cable and satellite, but on analogue cable, the closedown slide remained for over six years and was finally removed in April 2011 due to analogue cable becoming obsolete. The team at Plus were caught unaware as they had sent out their regular highlights email at 3:50pm. ITV3 launched at 9pm. The very first identity of Granada Plus upon its launch featured its 1996-1998 logo etched in purple curtains, with either people or objects making contact with it. The channel
198-952: A day after Setanta Sports confirmed that it would launch in March as a subscription service on the digital terrestrial platform, and on the same day that NTL's services re-branded as Virgin Media . However, industry sources believe Sky will be forced to shelve plans to withdraw its channels from Freeview and replace them with subscription channels, due to possible lost advertising revenue. Sky initially faced increased competition from telecommunications providers to deliver pay television services over existing telephone lines using ADSL . Such providers are able to offer " triple play " or " quadruple play " packages combining landline telephone, broadband Internet, mobile telephone and pay television services. To compete with these providers, in October 2005, Sky bought
264-627: A deal with Sky to bring some of its shows to the PlayStation Store Video Store. Users are able buy individual TV episodes in SD or HD. On 3 December 2014, Sky Go became available on the PlayStation 4 under the name "TV from Sky", followed by the PlayStation 3 on 29 January 2015. Sky Store has a library of films from Sky Cinema that can be rented or bought, either via an app or physical DVD/Blu-ray copies by post. Sky Store
330-417: A five-episode omnibus every weekend. The channel started showing episodes in original broadcast order from April 1976, (some cut slightly for timing reasons), until they got up to February 1994 on 1 November 2004. After Plus had secured the rights to show programmes originally made by Yorkshire Television , they started showing classic episodes of Emmerdale , usually straight after Coronation Street, at 9:30 in
396-498: A joint venture to operate four services on Sky and other cable platforms. The services were: The GSkyB portfolio greatly increased its reach with the launch of ONdigital , which Granada and Carlton, another dominant ITV rights holder, were funding, in October and November 1998. Granada Plus and Men & Motors performed well in ratings, but Breeze struggled to attract viewers, leading to budget cuts that resulted in original programming being cut and 60 jobs being lost. In December 2001,
462-656: A mixture of content from other Sky Channels, and Sky Max , showing Sky's original programming and entertainment previously shown on Sky One. On 7 October 2021, Sky announced a new all-in-one TV set called Sky Glass. It is designed to support streaming of Sky TV and streaming service shows over WiFi, eliminating the need for a satellite dish or box. It launched on 18 October 2021, with three sizes available: 43-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch. In October 2022, Comcast announced that it had written off US$ 8.6 billion of its valuation of Sky, with its third-quarter sales dropping 14.7 percent to $ 4.3 bn In October 2005, Sky agreed to purchase
528-631: A new channel similar to Plus to be launched. Originally conceived as 'ITV Gold', it evolved in its conception to ITV3. It would have been originally launched on both Freeview, NTL and Telewest, with a later launch on Sky in March ;2005, likely due to ITV rejecting a deal to encrypt ITV3, and the limitations faced by Sky boxes in exceeding the 500 channel limit. Due to the similarity in both channels' content, many believed that ITV3 would replace Plus, only for this rumour to be frequently debunked by GSB themselves. ITV also looked to either sell or close
594-564: A part of the ONdigital consortium, thereby making them a competitor by default, Sky was able to join ITV Digital's free-to-air replacement, Freeview , in which it holds an equal stake with the BBC , ITV , Channel 4 and Arqiva . Prior to October 2005, three Sky channels were available on this platform: Sky News , Sky Three , and Sky Sports News . Initially, Sky provided Sky Travel to
660-582: A permanent EPG position for ITV HD . In 2014, ITV's portfolio of channels was expanded with the launch of ITV Encore , a drama channel, and ITVBe , a reality and lifestyle channel. The launch of the latter lead to ITV2's repositioning as a youth-focused entertainment channel. In 2018, ITV closed the Encore channel and repositioned its content to the ITV Hub online service. In 2021, commissions for ITV2, ITVBe and CITV were altered in that they would debut first on
726-628: A range of television channels broadcasting the Granada and LWT archives on the Sky satellite platform, as well as other digital platforms such as ITV Digital (closed on 1 May 2002), NTL and Telewest (both later merged to form Virgin Media ). On 2 February 2004, Granada plc merged with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc , which fully purchased ITV Digital Channels in November of that year. In 1996, Granada plc and BSkyB agreed to create
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#1732801467049792-472: A subscription to watch the channels. After the two companies merged, subscribers could get access to both channels, and two years later, the sports channel Sky Sports also became encrypted. In the autumn of 1991, talks were held for the broadcast rights for Premier League for five years, from the 1992 season. ITV were the current rights holders and fought hard to retain the new rights. ITV had increased its offer from £18m to £34m per year to keep control of
858-630: A wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast -owned Sky Group, with its current company directors (including that of Sky Ireland ) being Executive Vice-president Stephen van Rooyen Its corporate headquarters are at the Sky Studios in Isleworth . The present service can trace its heritage back to 1990, when BSkyB's predecessors Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting encrypted their respective film channels – Sky Movies and The Movie Channel which required viewers to get decoding equipment and
924-551: Is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of Sky Group and, from 2018 onwards, part of Comcast . It is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster, with 12.7 million customers as of the end of 2019 for its digital satellite TV platform. Sky's flagship products are Sky Q and
990-403: Is available on Sky Q boxes as well as through apps on devices such as computers and mobile devices. It is available to anyone with a compatible device and does not require a Sky TV subscription. An over-the-top contract-free television service from Sky. The service is provided on a NOW device or through an app on selected computers, mobile devices, set-top boxes and smart TVs. NOW is separate from
1056-526: Is free for new or existing Sky TV customers using the Sky Mobile network. Since it was launched Sky has reduced the cost of its tariffs with, as of March 2021, 2GB now starting for £6.00 per month, 8GB for £10.00 per month, 10GB for £12.00 per month, 25GB for £15.00 per month, 30GB for £20 per month and 60GB for £30 has and they have also expanded the Sky VIP offering to mobile plans. They have also expanded
1122-700: The EPG as possible. ITV looked into Plus, which was in a high EPG slot, channel 118. Plus also had access to archives of programmes that were sought after by ITV for the new channel. At 1pm on that day, just 8 hours before launch, ITV and Sky finally reached a deal: ITV would buy out Sky 's 49.5% stake in GSB for £10 million. This meant ITV plc completely took full control of the two GSB channels, Plus and Men & Motors . Shortly afterwards, ITV plc decided to close Plus, and moved ITV2 to channel 118 making space for ITV3. An hour-and-a-half later that afternoon, while in
1188-469: The ONdigital digital terrestrial television service (later renamed ITV Digital ). ITV Digital failed for numerous reasons, including, but not limited to numerous administrative and technical failures, nervous investors after a large downturn in the advertising market and the dot com crash , and Sky's aggressive marketing and domination of premium sporting rights. While Sky had been excluded from being
1254-573: The Sky Digibox , using the Slogans "What do you want to watch?", "Entertainment your way" and the current slogan "Believe in Better" . This was followed by Sky+, a digital video recorder with an internal hard drive which allows viewers to 'pause live television' (by switching from a live feed to a paused real-time recording that can be restarted at any point) and schedule programs to record in
1320-542: The United Kingdom . On 1 March 2013, it was announced that Sky would buy O2 's and Be 's broadband services from Telefónica for £180 million upfront plus another £20 million once customers have been transferred. Telefónica said the deal would allow it to concentrate on providing better mobile services, including rolling out 4G. Sky offers broadband using the Openreach network. Customer premises connect to
1386-517: The "piggybank" facility to allow customers to "cash-in" piggybank data to bring the monthly cost of a phone down. Sky Mobile launched in Ireland in September 2024, and also announced their plans to expand to Italy. As of 30 March 2017, Sky Mobile is offering handset deals. Products are available from manufacturers such as Samsung , Sony and Apple . Sky launched with a set-top box known as
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#17328014670491452-447: The 1st of November. ITV Digital Channels ITV Digital Channels Limited (formerly known as Granada Sky Broadcasting ) is a wholly owned subsidiary of British broadcaster ITV plc . It manages all of the company's television channels with the exception of ITV1 , which is part of the entire network . It was set up in 1996 and operated until 2004 as a joint venture between Granada plc and British Sky Broadcasting to launch
1518-428: The GSB channels. However, come 1 November 2004 — ITV3's launch date — it was looking increasingly likely that ITV plc's new channel would not be launched on Sky Digital . However, frantic discussions were going on behind the scenes: ITV wanted the 7 million or so Sky viewers available; Sky did not want to give Freeview any advantage; and to further complicate matters, ITV wanted the new channel to be as high up on
1584-571: The High Court to get an injunction as it believed their bid details had been leaked before the decision was taken. ITV also asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate since it believed Rupert Murdoch's media empire via its newspapers had influenced the deal. A few days later neither action took effect, ITV believed BSkyB was telephoned and informed of its £262m bid, and Premier League advised BSkyB to increase its counter bid. BSkyB retained
1650-628: The ISP EasyNet for £211 million. At the time, EasyNet were one of the few ISPs that had made major investments in local-loop unbundling (LLU), giving Sky access to 232 unbundled telephone exchanges . The acquired EasyNet was placed under a new Sky Broadband division. In October 2007, Sky reached 1 million broadband customers and claimed to be gained one new customer every 40 seconds. By September 2009, Sky Broadband had 2.3 million customers. By July 2012 Sky Broadband had reached four million customers and had unbundled exchanges covering over 70% of
1716-439: The ITV Hub, then on the linear channels, whilst ITV2 was given a wider brief for producing factual content. The CITV channel closed on 1 September 2023, with programming moved to streaming service ITVX . A daily programming block was introduced on ITV2 from 2 September 2023, from 05:00 to 09:00, using the "CITV" brand. ITV operates the following digital television channels: Sky UK Sky UK Limited , trading as Sky ,
1782-549: The ITV brand. On 2 May 2005, Men & Motors launched as a free-to-air channel on the Freeview digital terrestrial television service. It was rumoured that ITV plc would replace it with ITV4 , another men's channel, when it launched later that year on 1 November, echoing the launch of ITV3 in 2004. However, after better than expected performance from Men & Motors as a free-to-air channel, both channels continued and ITV plc cut
1848-645: The Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports was awarded two of the six Premier League packages that the English FA offered to broadcasters. Sky picked up the remaining four for £1.3bn. In February 2015, Sky bid £4.2bn for a package of 120 premier league games across the three seasons from 2016. This represented an increase of 70% on the previous contract and was said to be £1bn more than the company had expected to pay. The move has been followed by staff cuts, increased subscription prices (including 9% in Sky's family package) and
1914-549: The Select Committee on National Heritage, mainly for the lack of original programming on many of the new channels. BSkyB's digital service was officially launched on 1 October 1998 under the name Sky Digital, although small-scale tests were carried out before then. At this time the use of the Sky Digital brand made an important distinction between the new service and Sky's analogue services. Key selling points were
1980-573: The Sky Multichannels package, many of which broadcast additional hours on Sky Digital, Sky Digital launched several new channels that were exclusive to the digital offer. The switchover from analogue to digital proceeded relatively quickly. In 1998, there were 6 million 'multichannel' TV homes in the UK (i.e. homes that watch television other than the traditional analogue terrestrial), and over half of these homes watched television using BSkyB's analogue service. BSkyB's digital service surpassed
2046-618: The Smarter Network, with tariffs mainly focused on data rather than traditional calls & text, effectively saving consumers money in wasted unused minutes and texts. 1GB data costs £10.00 per month while 5GB costs £15.00 per month with 10GB data costing £20.00 per month. With all those data tariffs, the customer can choose from two different call & text packages with the 'Pay as you use' costing 10p per minute of calls and 10p per text message sent or £10.00 per month for Unlimited Calls & Texts. The Unlimited Calls & Texts package
Plus (British TV channel) - Misplaced Pages Continue
2112-594: The UK's parliament heard a claim that a subscription to Sky was 'often damaging' to welfare recipients, along with alcohol, tobacco and gambling. Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke was proposing the payments of benefits and tax credits on a "Welfare Cash Card", in the style of the American Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , that could be used to buy only "essentials". In 2016, Sky launched its new TV and entertainment service called Sky Q . On 1 March 2018, it
2178-426: The analogue service in terms of subscribers in late 1999. By June 2000 the service had 3.6 million subscribers, which gave BSkyB 8.988 million subscribers across all platforms. This substantial growth reflected BSkyB's 34% share of viewers in multi-channel homes (up from 13.4% in 1999). BSkyB's analogue service ended in October 2001, and the digital service would eventually be marketed as just 'Sky'. By June 2005,
2244-458: The broadband Internet service provider Easynet for £211 million. This acquisition allowed Sky to start offering a Sky-branded broadband service as well as a "triple play" package combining satellite television, land-line telephone and Broadband service. Sky also offers some streaming live TV channels to a computer using Microsoft's Silverlight . In early 2012, Sky released an update to its Sky Anytime service. This update offers customers
2310-514: The broadcaster said its reach into 36% of households in the UK represented an audience of more than 25m people. The target was first announced in August 2004, and since then an additional 2.4 million customers had subscribed to Sky's direct-to-home service. Media commentators had debated whether the figure could be reached as the growth in subscriber numbers elsewhere in Europe flattened. In December,
2376-509: The chance to buy and rent films from the Sky Store . On 26 September 2012, Sky relaunched its "Anytime+" on-demand-via-broadband service as "On Demand" as the BBC 's iPlayer joined the line-up of channels offering catch-up TV on the company's Sky+ HD box – linked to a router, the signal from which was recorded before viewing. The BBC was making the preceding week's programmes available alongside ITV , Channel 4 's All 4 , Channel 5 and
2442-461: The channel also occasionally broadcast live UEFA Champions League football matches involving either Manchester United or Newcastle United on nights when the national ITV network was unable to broadcast the matches live. It was not long before Granada Plus revamped their on-screen identity, and in order to look more contemporary, they started showing more recent programmes made by the ITV network (at
2508-418: The clear or soft encrypted (whereby a Videocrypt decoder was required to decode, without a subscription card) before their addition to the Sky Multichannels package. Within two months of the launch, BSkyB gained 400,000 new subscribers, with the majority taking at least one premium channel as well, which helped BSkyB reach 3.5 million households by mid-1994. Michael Grade criticised the operations in front of
2574-466: The closure of Granada Plus left Men & Motors as the sole survivor of the original four channels. As part of ITV's buy-out of Sky's shareholding, Sky would have received 49.5% of any proceeds (net of liabilities) from any future sale of Men & Motors. The newly renamed company was given the brief of running all of ITV's digital services, with the major difference from the former GSkyB operation being that its channels were now free-to-air and carried
2640-434: The company's business strategy to an entirely fee-based concept. The new package included four channels formerly available free-to-air , broadcasting on Astra's satellites, as well as introducing new channels. The service continued until the closure of BSkyB's analogue service on 27 September 2001, due to the expansion of the Sky Digital platform after its launch three years before. Some of the channels did broadcast either in
2706-463: The core Sky TV service. [REDACTED] On 21 October 2016, it was announced that public pre-registration for Sky's new mobile network, Sky Mobile, would take place from 31 October 2016. The network will operate as a Full MVNO , utilising the O2 radio access network infrastructure, and O2's full network speeds and 4G+. On 5 January 2017 Sky Mobile went live to the public across the UK. Coining itself as
Plus (British TV channel) - Misplaced Pages Continue
2772-465: The decision was made to close the channel with a gradual closure across digital platforms. It was finally closed on 30 April 2002 to honour contracts with Telewest and NTL . Throughout 2001 and 2002, the channels began to disassociate from Granada branding. Men & Motors received a major rebrand in August 2001, and the Granada brand was dropped from Plus in September 2002. In late November 2003,
2838-465: The domestic rights of Hollywood films. Following BSkyB's acquisition of Sky Italia and a majority interest in Sky Deutschland in 2014, its holding company British Sky Broadcasting Group plc changed its name to Sky plc (now Sky Group Limited ). The UK subsidiary's name was changed from British Sky Broadcasting Limited to Sky UK Limited, and continuing to trade as "Sky". Sky UK Limited is
2904-424: The dropping of the 3D channel. In September 1993, BSkyB launched Sky Multichannels which was the present digital platform's analogue predecessor. Sky Multichannels was a subscription package that gave access not only to Sky's channels but also to those of third-party broadcasters. The service started on 1 September 1993. It was based on an idea by then CEO Sam Chisholm and chairman Rupert Murdoch of converting
2970-434: The future of GSkyB was thrown into uncertainty as Granada and Carlton – soon to merge as ITV plc – looked to increase their multichannel presence. ITV Gold was conceived as a new archive channel similar to Plus, but over time this evolved to ITV3 , with Plus' first run rights to archive drama being sought after for the new channel. ITV was also negotiating with Sky over carriage of ITV3, eventually reaching an impasse due to
3036-638: The future. In later years the Sky+ box and then the Sky+ HD box replaced the original Digibox . The first photos of a prototype Sky HD box began appearing in magazines in August 2005. Sky launched HDTV services in May 2006. All Sky+ HD boxes incorporate a version of Sky+ using a 300GB, 500GB, or 1TB hard drive (of which 160GB, 250GB or 500GB are available to the user) to accommodate the necessary extra data. Sky initially charged an additional subscription fee for using
3102-673: The hours of the ITV News Channel to make way for ITV4 and CITV instead. The news channel closed on 23 December of that year with its remaining bandwidth used for CITV. Although ITV4 started broadcasting from the Astra satellite on 1 November, it was not placed on the Sky EPG until 7 November. Because of this, some ITV4 sports programming was simulcast on Men & Motors under the ITV4 on m&m strand. On 23 February 2006, despite
3168-434: The improvement in picture and sound quality, increased number of channels and an interactive service branded Open.... , later called Sky Active . BSkyB competed with the ONdigital (later ITV Digital ) terrestrial offering and cable services. Within 30 days, over 100,000 digiboxes had been sold, which helped bolster BSkyB's decision to give away free digiboxes and mini dishes from May 1999. In addition to most channels from
3234-468: The internet-based Sky Glass, and its flagship channels are Sky Showcase , Sky Max , and Sky Atlantic . Formed as British Sky Broadcasting ( BSkyB ) in November 1990 through the merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting , it grew into a major media company by the end of the decade, notably owning all the television broadcasting rights for the Premier League and almost all
3300-462: The lack of EPG space on some Sky Digiboxes. It was later announced with carriage on Freeview , NTL and Telewest , but with no Sky carriage. Many had expected GSkyB to either be sold or closed entirely, an option ITV considered as it began the sale of non-core assets. On 1 November 2004, ITV plc agreed to purchase BSkyB's stake in GSkyB for £10 million. The deal included the slot that Granada Plus
3366-558: The last two had also originally aired on the BBC in Britain). The channel also aired British premieres of at least three US series: 10-8: Officers on Duty , Fortune Hunter and the 1988 revival of Mission: Impossible . Many of the channel's programmes were cut by up to five minutes for commercial timing purposes, which was not a popular choice with viewers. The future of Plus came into doubt by late 2003, when ITV had planned for
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#17328014670493432-441: The middle of a commercial break, Plus suddenly cut to a closedown slide, and, on digital cable and satellite platforms, shortly afterwards disappeared. The final programme on Plus was Pie in the Sky , but only half of it was shown before ITV ceased transmission of Plus. On Sky, Plus was immediately removed minutes after closure, with ITV2 and ITV3 appearing on channels 118 and 119 in an EPG update. On NTL and Telewest, Plus broadcast
3498-419: The morning and 12:30 in the afternoon, each weekday. Many of these programmes would have been unshown since their original transmissions, and hence were of value to those interested in classic television, but these early schedules lacked the commercial appeal of rival channel UK Gold , which had long since moved from showing little-seen gems to showing television's 'greatest hits'. Before the launch of ITV2 ,
3564-597: The network using ADSL , FTTC and FTTP . Sky Talk is a fixed-line telephone service, with options for pay-as-you-go or bundled call minutes. NOW Broadband is a brand name of low-cost broadband plans. It is associated with the Now over-the-top television service brand operated by Sky. Sky offer two security add-ons for Sky Broadband, Sky Broadband Shield and Sky Talk Shield. Sky Broadband Shield offers network-wide web filtering and security and Sky Talk Shield offers spam call blocking. Sky initially faced competition from
3630-514: The number of digital subscribers increase to 7.8m, while it produced 38,375 hours of sport in 2005. In November 2005, in partnership with Vodafone , Sky Mobile TV was launched which was the UK's first commercially available mobile TV service. Vodafone live! customers with 3G -enabled handsets would receive the service. Sky's direct-to-home satellite service became available in 10 million homes in 2010, Europe's first pay-TV platform to achieve that milestone. Confirming it had reached its target,
3696-452: The partly BBC Worldwide-owned UKTV , as well as Sky's own channels. Sky Go is provided free of charge for Sky (satellite TV) subscribers and allows them to watch channels live and on-demand through an internet connection on a computer or mobile device. On 29 May 2009, it was confirmed that Sky Go would be made available on the Xbox 360 . In November 2011 Sony Computer Entertainment struck
3762-488: The previous decision not to close Men & Motors, fresh rumours over the channel's future began to circulate due to poorer than expected performance from ITV4. In April 2006, Men & Motors left Freeview to make way for the launch of ITV Play , and much of its content was moved over to ITV4. ITV intended to dispose of the channel as a non-core asset, but it ultimately closed on Virgin Media on 25 March 2010, and finally closed on Sky and Freesat on 1 April, to make way for
3828-633: The rest of Sky after its bid gained acceptance from 95.3% of the broadcaster's shareholders with the company being delisted by early 2019. Sky was delisted on 7 November 2018 after Comcast acquired all remaining shares. On 17 September 2020, Sky Arts became the first premium Sky channel to become available on the free to air terrestrial Freeview service, joining Sky News and a couple of channels which trace their lineage back to Flextech ( Pick and Challenge ). On 28 July 2021, Sky announced that its flagship channel Sky One would shut down on 1 September, to be replaced by two channels; Sky Showcase , showing
3894-490: The rights paying £670m 1997–2001 deal, but was challenged by ONdigital for the rights from 2001 to 2004, thus were forced to £1.1 billion which gave them 66 live games a year. Following a lengthy legal battle with the European Commission, which deemed the exclusivity of the rights to be against the interests of competition and the consumer, BSkyB's monopoly came to an end from the 2007–08 season . In May 2006,
3960-417: The rights. BSkyB joined forces with the BBC to make a counter bid. The BBC was given the highlights of most of the matches, while BSkyB paying £304m for the Premier League rights, would give them a monopoly of all live matches, up to 60 per year from the 1992 season. Murdoch described sport as a "battering ram" for pay television, providing a strong customer base. A few weeks after the deal, ITV went to
4026-481: The service. However, this was replaced by Sky Three on 31 October 2005, which was itself later re-branded as 'Pick TV' in 2011. On 8 February 2007, Sky announced its intention to replace its three free-to-air digital terrestrial channels with four subscription channels. It was proposed that these channels would offer a range of content from the Sky portfolio including sports (including English Premier League Football), films, entertainment and news. The announcement came
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#17328014670494092-536: The time, Granada were busy buying up old rivals such as Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television , in preparation for a unified ITV plc ), as well as programme stock which had been originally shown on the BBC . Granada Plus also began screening many classic US shows popular with British viewers and airing promos with the stars of those shows (such as James MacArthur for Hawaii Five-O , Cheryl Ladd for Charlie's Angels , Philip Michael Thomas for Miami Vice and Ben Murphy for Alias Smith and Jones -
4158-407: Was broadcasting on, which ITV used to broadcast its new ITV3 channel which replaced Plus on the same day. The negotiations that led to ITV plc taking sole control of GSkyB, closing Plus and launching ITV3 on digital satellite were apparently completed just hours before the new channel started broadcasting. On 8 November, Granada Sky Broadcasting was renamed ITV Digital Channels Limited, shortly after
4224-488: Was launched on 1 October 1996 at 7pm. From launch, the channel initially showed only programmes made originally by Granada Television and London Weekend Television (itself recently acquired by Granada Television), such as On the Buses , Crown Court , The Comedians and The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club . One of the channel's biggest attractions was a thrice-daily repeat of classic Coronation Street , with
4290-427: Was renamed G Plus in 1998, and it received new idents featuring the logo interacting with the backround. The idents were replaced in 1999. Around 2002, Granada Plus, now named simply Plus, got a new look, which showed a pale blue ball with an white plus sign on it. The idents showed the 3D logo in everyday places, as seen in the stills of the idents. The idents would be scrapped in 2004 as Plus was discontinued for ITV3 on
4356-529: Was reported that Sky UK had concluded successful negotiations with Netflix to offer Sky subscribers access to its international streaming service. Comcast , the largest cable TV provider in the United States, outbid 21st Century Fox , on 22 September 2018 in an auction for control of Sky UK. On 4 October 2018, Fox sold their stake to Comcast, giving the latter a 76.8% controlling stake. On 12 October 2018, Comcast announced it will compulsorily acquire
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