TVGuide.co.uk is a British television listings website.

History

The creators of TVGuide.co.uk envisioned people searching and watching television online, which the website cites as the reason they registered the domain name. In 2007, the brand's chief executive officer was Chetan Damani. The website was relaunched to include user-generated content and a new format: the television listings grid. It also enabled users to customise the guide to hide channels unavailable to them. Sister company Imano were commissioned to develop the changes. By 2008, TVGuide.co.uk had over one million unique users. TVGuide.co.uk entered a partnership with TVCatchup to allow their users to watch television online without leaving their website. The brand later released their service as an application for

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and

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devices. The application was originally designed by Imano. TVGuide.co.uk's use of

deep linking In the context of the World Wide Web, deep linking is the use of a hyperlink that links to a specific, generally searchable or indexed, piece of web content on a website (e.g. "https://example.com/path/page"), rather than the website's home page ...

has caused problems with British broadcasters. In March 2008, ITV and

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

hired lawyers to investigate the legality of TVGuide.co.uk linking directly to their video content. ITV later devised a strategy to prevent the website and similar websites from doing so, fearing profit loss. The broadcaster along with

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

also altered their streaming services to block the deep linking. The company has been represented by Monetise, which was later acquired by

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. The website continued to receive advertising directing from Glam Media as well as

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. In 2012, the website was investigated by the Advertising Standards Agency after it featured an advertisement for

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. The watchdog concluded that it was "unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence". The website also revealed that only 4.6% of users were under eighteen years old. The brand has begun a new project covering international television listings which operated at "yo.tv". In 2014, the website announced that it had acquired over three million monthly website users and downloads of their application had surpassed seven million. They also revealed that they gained more than five million unique users across their entire franchise. Digitalbox purchased the assets of the site in 2022. In September 2023 the website was completely overhauled with the mobile web interface replacing the desktop site, which was no longer accessible.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:TVGuide.co.uk Television schedules British entertainment websites