Virgin1 was a British

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

entertainment television channel owned and operated by Virgin Media Television, later known as

Living TV Group Living TV Group was a British television consortium originally called Flextech from 1988 before becoming a subsidiary of Virgin Media and renamed to Virgin Media Television. It was bought by Sky UK, BSkyB in 2010 and renamed to Living TV Group ...

. The channel was launched on 1October 2007 at 21:00, intended to rival

BSkyB Sky UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting Limited (BSkyB)), trading as Sky, is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, broadband internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers ...

Sky One Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non- terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, ...

. Virgin Media Television had spent on acquiring major franchises as well as commissioning new TV programmes in time for the channel's launch. The channel was broadcast on

Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...

Virgin Media Virgin Media Limited is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 ...

and

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

platforms. Virgin1 managed to achieve good ratings within a year of launching. Its broadcast hours were then extended to 24 hours, and a onehour time-shift, Virgin1+1, was launched, from 20 May 2009. Virgin1 received a refreshed logo along with a

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, sports team, university society, society, military unit, or brand, brand name. Mascots are als ...

, Red, in June 2009. BSkyB acquired the channel on 4 June 2010 and, as a result, it was rebranded to Channel One on 3September 2010. On 15September 2010, BSkyB announced that it would close Channel One and sister channels

Bravo Bravo(s) or The Bravo(s) may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Groups and labels * Bravo (band), a Russian rock band * Bravo (Spanish group), represented Spain at Eurovision 1984 * Bravo Music, an American concert band music publishing compa ...

and

Bravo 2 Bravo 2 (formerly known as Player) was a British television channel. History Player The channel launched as "Player" on March 2, 2006, being a spin-off to a block that previously aired late-at-night on Challenge. Unlike the block, the channel f ...

, which had also been purchased. Channel One closed on 1February 2011 at 06:00 UTC and its slot was replaced by Challenge on Freeview and

Sky Atlantic Sky Atlantic is a British pay television channel owned by Sky Group, Sky Group Limited that launched in 2011 and broadcasts in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The channel airs original British-produced dramas like ''Fortitude (TV series), F ...

on Sky.

History

Virgin1

Plans for a

Virgin Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...

-branded general entertainment TV channel were hatched by Virgin Media Television in 2006 to coincide with the relaunch on NTL: Telewest to

. Virgin1 was announced in the summer of 2007. At first, the company stated that all of their other channels including Ftn, would still run as normal, but because of Ftn having a key Freeview primetime slot, this was later changed. The channel was launched as Virgin1 at 21:00 on 1 October 2007 on all platforms (

and

) replacing former Virgin Media Television channel Ftn. Some media sources have claimed that it was intended to be in direct competition with

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting Limited (BSkyB)), trading as Sky, is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, broadband internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers a ...

's flagship channel,

Sky1 Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non- terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989 ...

, which in August 2010 had a 0.8% share of the market compared with Virgin1's 0.7%. High profile shows that were purchased by Virgin Media Television to be broadcast on Virgin1 included '' Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles'', ''

The Riches ''The Riches'' (styled as ''the R1¢hes'') is an American drama television series which was originally broadcast from March 12, 2007, to April 29, 2008, on FX. The series stars Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as members of a family of Irish Trav ...

'' and the ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

'' franchise. Managing director of Virgin Media Television stated that there was a gap in the Freeview market for male viewers that Virgin1 was aiming to fill. On 20 February 2008, the channel moved from FTN's old slots on channels 153 and 154 on

and took over Bravo's slots on channels 121 and 122, which were placed higher up on the EPG. The next day, the channel went on to achieve its highest ratings thus far, with the season premiere of ''Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles'' which secured a 4.2% share of multi-channel viewers. On 27 April 2009, it was announced that Virgin1 (on

) would move from multiplexD to multiplex A, allowing the channel to broadcast 24 hours a day. Its vacated slot was used to launch a time-shifted version of the channel which broadcast from 18:00 to 06:00. In Wales, it was only available from 09:00 to 19:00, with the +1 service only available from 19:00. On 14 May 2009, Virgin Media Television announced plans to revamp the channel. On 9June 2009, it underwent a rebranding with new

idents Station identification (ident, network ID, channel ID or bumper (broadcasting), bumper) is the practice of radio and television stations and broadcast network, networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand na ...

break bumper In broadcasting, a commercial bumper, ident bumper, or break-bumper (often shortened to bump) is a brief announcement, usually two to fifteen seconds in length that can contain a voice over, placed between a pause in the program and its commercia ...

s and onscreen identity. As part of the rebrand, a mascot called Red was introduced, a puppet character from the creator of the

ITV Digital Monkey Monkey (also known as The Monkey, ITV Digital Monkey or PG Tips Monkey, and often pronounced in imitation of Johnny Vegas' Lancashire accent), is a puppet advertising character in the form of a knitted sock monkey. He was first produced by The ...

. On 20 October 2009, the channel reduced its hours on Freeview to 09:0003:00, allowing Tease Me TV to launch. The revocation of TMTV's licence in November 2010 freed up the bandwidth it used from Channel One, but it was left vacant until the closure of the channel. From 30 October 2009, the channel briefly aired ''TNA iMPACT!'' at 21:00 (which was also shown on sister channel Bravo at the time). This was the first time wrestling has been aired on free television in the UK since 2001. On 1 June 2010, the time-shifted version of the channel ceased broadcasting on Freeview channel 35, allowing Yesterday to extend its broadcast hours. The time-shifted service continued to operate on satellite and cable platforms, between 04:00 and 01:00 daily (the live

Challenge Jackpot Jackpot247 (formerly Challenge Jackpot) is an interactive gambling website owned by Betsson Group. From 2008 until 2019, the site had television segments on channels including ITV and Vox Africa. The "Challenge Jackpot" brand was dropped in S ...

simulcast on Virgin1 between 00:00 and 03:00 was not timeshifted).

Sky purchase and Channel One rebrand

On 4 June 2010, British Sky Broadcasting and Virgin Media announced that they had reached an agreement for the acquisition by Sky of Virgin Media Television. Virgin1 was also a part of the deal, but was

rebrand Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...

ed as Channel One on 3 September 2010, as the

name wasn't licensed to Sky.

Closure

On 15 September 2010, BSkyB announced that it would close Channel One and its sister channels Bravo and

. Sky, having carried out a review of the VMTV channels, found that Channel One was too similar to Sky3, with which it sat alongside as a free to air channel on Freeview. Challenge would utilise Channel One's former Freeview slot, and receive a large boost in its programming budget. At 06:00 on 1 February 2011, Channel One ceased broadcasting on all platforms; the last programme was an episode of ''Star Trek: Enterprise''. Since its closure, many programmes, including sci-fi and drama programming, were incorporated into Sky's free-to-air channel,

Pick TV Sky Mix (formerly Sky Three, Sky3, Sky 3, Pick TV and Pick) is a British free-to-air television channel, owned by Sky UK. The channel originally launched on 31 October 2005 as Sky Three. The channel's current name, which was adopted in 202 ...

(a rebranding from Sky3), whilst premium programming was moved to Sky's pay TV channels.

Most watched broadcasts

The following is a list of the ten most watched shows on Channel One, based on Live +7 data supplied by

BARB Barb or the BARBs or ''variation'' may refer to: People * Barb (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname * Barb, a term used by fans of Nicki Minaj to refer to themselves * The Barbs, a band Places * Barb, ...

up to 18 October 2010.

, vi

Programming

The schedule for Virgin1 consisted of a mixture of British and American comedy, drama and factual programming, both acquired and commissioned. The channel was pitched between male-targeted channel Bravo and female-targeted channel Sky Living, Living. In addition to exclusive content, Virgin1 also showed some content from Living, Bravo and Challenge.

References

{{Navboxes, list1= {{Living TV Group {{Virgin Media O2 {{BSkyB {{Media in the United Kingdom, television Living TV Group channels Television channels in the United Kingdom Television channels and stations established in 2007 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2011 Defunct television channels in the United Kingdom