Dave (channel)

U&Dave is a British free-to-air television channel owned by UKTV, a subsidiary of BBC Studios. It is known for broadcasting mainly 21st-century comedy and factual programming, with both original production and repeats.

Launched in October 1998 as UK Gold Classics, the channel would undergo various identity and format changes before adopting the Dave branding on 15 October 2007. It was renamed U&Dave in July 2024 to mark the streaming service UKTV Play being renamed as U.

U&DaveJaVu is its sister timeshift channel. Unlike other commercial channels, it doesn't have a "+1" next to it and is named after the term déjà vu.

History of U&Dave

UK Gold Classics and UK Gold 2 (1998–2003)

UK Gold Classics was UKTV's first digital-only channel. It was launched on 2 October 1998, and was only broadcast from Friday to Sunday on Sky Digital from 6.00pm to 2.00am. Around this time, UK Gold began to move away from older programmes and towards newer ones. Their 'classics' line-up included a number of early shows, and some black-and-white programmes, which had been acquired in the early years of the UK Gold service. While Gold Classics showed some recent shows from the main Gold channel, its main purpose was older shows from the early years of UK Gold. On weekdays, the channel was off air, showing a still caption of all the UKTV channels and start-up times.

Some of the programmes that aired on UK Gold Classics were a repeat run of the ITV comedy series '' Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt'', BBC comedy series ''Open All Hours'', BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', ITV police drama series ''The Bill'', and ITV comedy series ''Gingerbread Girl''. Some of UK Gold's original commissioned programming that were recently aired on the main channel at the time (''Wow-fab-Groovy'', ''Tellystack'', ''Sports Anorak of the Year'', stand-up comedy show ''Live at Jongleurs'', ''Rowland Rivron Bites The Bullet'' and music show ''Gold Goes Pop'') also received airings on Gold Classics

The 'Classics' format lasted just six months; ending on 28 March 1999. The following day, UKTV announced that the channel would be relaunched as UK Gold 2 from 2 April 1999, and eventually expand its broadcast hours. UK Gold 2 essentially functioned as a secondary timeshift service, with the channel screening UK Gold's programmes from the morning of that day. On 24 May 1999, it was officially announced that the channel would start broadcasting daily from 1 June.

On 11 February 2002, UK Gold 2's downtime within the day became home to UK Style +. On 29 May, the channel launched on NTL. and eventually on Telewest. On 1 August, the channel moved from 110 to 111 on the Sky EPG, to make room for UK Gold +1, which launched that day. In July 2003, UK Style + vacated the downtime slot used by UK Gold 2 and extended its broadcast hours.

UK G² and UKTV G2 (2003–2007)

On 28 October 2003, it was announced that UK Gold 2 would be relaunched and rebranded as UK G2 (stylized as UK G²) on 12 November. UK G2 was promoted as being an edgier alternative to UK Gold; airing programmes aimed at an 18-34 year-old youth audience. Some of the programmes that already aired on UK Gold moved to the new network, in addition to some programmes from Play UK (which had closed the year prior). The broadcast hours were also changed, with the channel now operating from 8:00pm to 5:00am.

On 8 March 2004, in-line with its sibling channels, the channel would adopt the full "UKTV" name, becoming UKTV G2. On 1 November, near the channel's first anniversary, a one-hour timeshift service, UKTV G2 +1, was launched on Sky and Telewest., broadcasting from 9:00pm to 4:00am.

On 7 October 2005, it was announced that UKTV G2 would pilot a sports programming block titled "UKTV Sport". The block would include a new show by the same name, as well as its own logo and digital on-screen graphic. The block was planned to be a pilot for a dedicated TV channel of the same name, which never came into fruition.

Expansion of broadcast hours and addition of live sports (2006–2007)

On 10 December 2005, UKTV announced that UKTV G2 would expand broadcast hours to the daytime and begin operations at 9:00am beginning on 16 January 2006. The expansion of hours was to prepare for the full launch of the UKTV Sport strand, which would fill out some of the daytime hours during sports events. Standard programmes featured included pre-watershed comedy programmes already seen on the channel, alongside the addition of popular-factual and magazine shows which were already running on UKTV People, such as '' Top Gear'' and ''Airport''. The extended hours did not apply to UKTV G2 +1, which remained an evening-only service.

In February 2006, UKTV obtained the rights to show highlights of the Six Nations rugby union championship, with a highlights show broadcast on the evening of the games previously shown live on the BBC. On 16 March 2006, they announced a deal to air extensive coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup as a sub-licensing of the BBC's rights to the tournament. UKTV G2 simulcast the BBC's live matches, including the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica, England's game with Paraguay and the final. The channel also showed highlights of every match in the tournament.

In April 2006, the channel acquired the rights to the quarter-finals of the EuroLeague Basketball and in August, UKTV G2 also picked up rights to the 2006 FIBA World Championship, forming the programme 'UKTV Slam'.

Relaunch as Dave and Freeview launch (2007–2022)

In August 2007, UKTV announced they were considering on adding a planned relaunch of UKTV G2 to the digital terrestrial platform Freeview, replacing UKTV Bright Ideas. On 20 September 2007, UKTV officially announced that the relaunch of UKTV G2 would be called Dave; and that it would occur on 15 October, and would be added to Freeview on the same day. The channel's name was chosen with UKTV saying that "everyone knows a bloke called Dave". To prepare for the launch, UKTV Bright Ideas was shut down permanently, with UKTV History taking over its timesharing bandwidth with Virgin1, while Dave would launch in UKTV History's former Freeview bandwidth. To ensure that all Freeview viewers received Dave on channel number 19, UKTV briefly placed a re-tuning notice on the programme's information. The timeshift service UKTV G2 +1 was effectively renamed Dave +1 and expanded its own broadcast hours to match its parent network.

Dave used the tagline "the home of witty banter", and had Ralph Ineson as an announcer; along with David Flynn, Phill Jupitus, Iain Lee and BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James.

On 31 January 2008, the channel began broadcasting in widescreen, along with the other UKTV channels.

On 22 January 2009, following UKTV's acquisition of a further Freeview broadcast slot, Dave +1 was made available on the digital terrestrial platform. Dave +1 would be renamed Dave ja vu (a play on the phrase ''déjà vu'') on 24 February, in order to "strengthen the brand's positioning as the home of witty banter" according to UKTV bosses. In April 2009, they aired three new instalments of ''Red Dwarf'', entitled '' Back to Earth''. This marked the channel's first foray into scripted original programming. During the airing of the ''Red Dwarf'' mini-series, the Dave DOG in the top left corner of the screen had the word 'Lister' added after it in the same font, after the show's lead character; during the special it is even suggested that the station is named after him. ''Back to Earth'' brought record breaking viewing figures, not just in the context of the channel's past, but for digital television in general. Subsequently, three full series of ''Red Dwarf'' have been produced for Dave which aired in 2012, 2016 and 2017, along with a feature-length special in 2020. In June 2009, the logo was updated to incorporate the 'circle' logo branding of all the new UKTV channels. At the same time, the voice of Dave became Nigel Grover, aka Scott Saunders, who had previously worked at a number of local radio stations.

On 14 June 2011, UKTV announced that Really would launch on Freeview on 2 August 2011. To facilitate this, Dave ja vu's broadcast hours on the platform were reduced from 8.00 am-4.00 am to 2.00 am-4.00 am in order to keep the space for future use. On 29 July 2011, UKTV announced that it had secured a deal with BSkyB to launch three more high-definition channels on Sky UK. As part of Virgin Media's deal to sell its share of UKTV, all five of UKTV's HD channels would also be added to Virgin's cable television service by 2012. Dave HD launched on 10 October 2011 on Sky and Virgin Media, two days before '' Watch HD'', while '' Alibi HD'' launched in July 2012. All three channels are HD simulcasts of the standard-definition channel.

In September 2012, the channel swapped its Freeview EPG number with Yesterday, moving to channel 12. On 22 November 2012, UKTV confirmed that it had secured a deal for another 24-hour DTT slot and would use it for Dave ja vu until it firmed up permanent plans for the slot. Dave ja vu began to broadcast its full schedule on the platform again from 3 January 2013. Drama permanently took the slot from 8 July 2013, however Dave ja vu continued to broadcast between 2.00 am-5.00 am.

On 29 April 2014, the 'circle' logo was removed and the original 2007 logo was restored. On 20 November, Dave ja vu returned to 24-hour broadcasting on Freeview.

Dave HD along with Good Food HD and Eden HD launched on BT TV on 3 October 2016.

In June 2019, Dave moved back to channel 19 on Freeview, a space previously occupied by Yesterday. This was following owner BBC Studios breaking up its joint venture with Discovery, Inc., with Discovery acquiring Good Food, Home and Really.

In November 2020, following UKTV's purchase of CCXTV, Dave ja vu moved to channel 23, whilst CCXTV moved to Freeview 73.

After the relaunch of BBC Three (and with BBC Four in Scotland taking the next slot), Dave ja vu moved down to channel 25. This lasted until March 2022, when UKTV revealed that Dave would be going back to the 70s section on the Freeview EPG, as the channel number was used by UKTV for their female-skewing W channel. From 28 March 2022, Dave Ja Vu took Drama+1's slot on Freeview 74, with that one-hour timeshift of Drama moving up to channel 60.

2022–present

On 9 November 2022, Dave was given a on-air refresh, including a new logo, idents, and a new slogan ("Add a bit of Dave").

On 16 July 2024, the channel was rebranded as ''U&Dave'', as part of the realignment of UKTV's free-to-air networks under the new "U" masterbrand.

Reception

Within just one month of its launch, Dave was the tenth most viewed television channel in the UK. In November 2007, the broadcaster listed daily viewing averages at around 3 million viewers, although, much of the growth was attributed to its presence on Freeview; nonetheless, it was performing significantly better in pay TV homes than UKTV G2. Over the month since its launch, Dave averaged a 1.32% share in multichannel homes and a 3.2% share in the 16–34 male demographic.

Dave received 4 million viewers throughout 18 November 2007 for its coverage of "Car of the Year", pushing it to second place in multichannel behind ITV2.

The first episode of '' Red Dwarf: Back to Earth'' attracted 2,060,000 viewers on the first viewing, though over 4 million viewed the episode at some point over its debut weekend. The highest rating original commission before this had been '' Red Bull X-Fighters'' (about 185,000).

Programming

Current 'Made for Dave' UKTV Originals

Previous 'Made for Dave' UKTV Originals

Current reruns and imports

Sport

From 2008 to 2010, Dave showed highlights of the World Rally Championship.

On 6 January 2016, UKTV announced that Dave would show its first-ever live sporting event with a boxing match between David Haye and Mark de Mori at the O2 Arena on 16 January 2016 produced by Salter Brothers Entertainment.

In late May 2016, Dave broadcast full live coverage of the 2016 BDO World Trophy darts tournament.

In July 2016, Dave covered cricket's Caribbean Premier League. It broadcast five matches live, including the final and showed the other games in full on a delayed basis.

In 2017, Dave started broadcasting live MMA with promotion BAMMA.

Films

In its early years, Dave aired a mix of black-and-white films like ''The Lavender Hill Mob'' and 90s films like '' The Hudsucker Proxy''.

In 2012, Dave introduced its 'film club' where a different film would be shown every week, including ''Barton Fink'', '' City of God'', ''The Big Lebowski'', '' Resident Evil: Apocalypse'', ''Taxi Driver'', and ''Clerks'' to name a few.

In early 2016, Dave and Yesterday aired Western films during the daytime. From 2017, Dave mostly show films on Friday and Saturday nights, with Friday being a repeat of the film that was shown on a Saturday.

In 2019 and 2023, Dave showed a season of Quentin Tarantino movies.

Previous

''Dave Weekly'' podcast

In August 2011, Dave launched a regular comedy podcast called ''The Dave Weekly'' hosted on joindave.co.uk and accessible via iTunes. Presented by Ben Shires, the podcast comprises interviews with comedians such as Russell Kane, Jo Brand, Adam Buxton, Paul Foot and Alex Horne along with occasional features.

Dave’s Funniest Joke Of The Fringe

Since 2008 the channel has given the Funniest Joke of the Fringe award. The award is voted on by the public from a shortlist and aims to highlight the best single joke told at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:UandDave
Television channels and stations established in 1998
UKTV
UKTV channels
1998 establishments in the United Kingdom