Six TV was the sixth free to air terrestrial

television channel A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with ...

in the United Kingdom, broadcast in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

. It was the final analogue network to have been launched after

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

, ITV,

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

and Channel 5. It operated under a set of Restricted Television Service Licences, broadcasting on

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 47 in Oxford and channel 29 in Southampton. It was owned by Oxford Broadcasting, who launched the channel in 1999; Oxford Broadcasting was sold to Milestone Group in 2001, who closed all operations by April 2009.

Launch and expansion

Oxford Broadcasting was founded in 1998 by Debora and

Thomas Harding Thomas Harding (born 1448 in Cambridge, Gloucestershire, England and died at Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England, May 1532) was a sixteenth-century English religious dissident who, while waiting to be burnt at the stake as a Lollard in 1532, was ...

, who both had worked at Oxford-based video production company Undercurrents. They applied for a local television licence and were successful. They raised the capital to launch the station, set up a broadcast studio in an old nuclear bunker on Woodstock Road, and hired over 60 staff. From the beginning, the channel focused on local stories, particularly sports, business, arts, music and politics. The Oxford Channel was launched on 6 June 1999. Within a few months, the station's programming had built a considerable following: over 25% of the potential audience of 500,000 watched each week. Advertising for the station was produced by Tom, Dick and Debbie Productions, founded by Debora & Thomas Harding and Richard Lewis. According to a

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

Institute report, the channel "also had a strong training programme, which made formal in 2000 through the Local Television Training company that attracted government money to train unemployed young people from Oxford and taught them the skills of broadcast television. This scheme had a high success rate of placing trainees within the television industry." In 2001, the board voted to sell the loss-making station and its operating company to Milestone Group. During this transition, most of the staff were laid off by Milestone, who also laid off the station's founders, though a small percentage of the staff remained. Milestone gained further licences to broadcast in Southampton, Fawley,

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...

and

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most d ...

in 2003 after the re-advertising of the four-year contracts, and successfully renewed its contract to broadcast to Oxford. The station was re-branded as Six TV in anticipation of the launch of these services. The channel broadcast a 24-hour service, seven days a week and featured numerous local programmes including a motoring show ''V6'' presented by Chris Ford, as well as an interactive music programme ''OX900'', and wildlife series ''Wild'', which was nominated for an

RTS RTS may refer to: Medicine * Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim * Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma * Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...

Award. It also introduced a children's section, local sports, and local news under the guidance of managing director, Nigel Taylor.

Fate

The channel's contract to broadcast was set to expire on 30 June 2007; however,

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

confirmed that all RSL licences would be extended until the 2012

digital switchover The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is conv ...

but gave no undertaking that a digital licence would be granted. Milestone concluded that the lack of digital licences rendered the stations non-viable, and all channels had ceased broadcasting by April 2009, including the original Oxford channel.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Six Tv Television channels and stations established in 1999 1999 establishments in England Television channels and stations disestablished in 2009 2009 disestablishments in England RSL television channels Portsmouth Culture in Reading, Berkshire History of Reading, Berkshire Southampton Mass media in Oxford History of Oxford

Launch and expansion

Fate

See also

References