Virgin Media flogs off UKTV stake for £339m

Virgin Media isn't in the TV content business anymore. Today the cable operator confirmed it has a buyer for its share of the UKTV company, for £239m plus £100m to buy up outstanding debt and equity. The buyer is US company Scripps Networks Interactive, responsible for the Food Network. The other half of UKTV is owned by the …

[Darren B 1]

er.....Dave, formerly UK Gold

Are you saying Dave is formerly UK Gold or there is a tv channel called formerly UK Gold?

Dave is Dave and UK Gold is now G.O.L.D. (isn't it?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave is the former UK Gold 2

itself formerly UK Gold Classics. Better known in this household as the Top Gear Channel

[Gordon Lawrie]

At one point all of UKTV's channels started with the prefix "UK".

G.O.L.D. used to be called UK Gold. It had a sister channel which was called UK Gold 2 which showed different content. Eventually UK Gold was renamed to just G.O.L.D. and UK Gold 2 was renamed to Dave.

[Alan 6]

Dave = UK Gold 2

On Dave's blog on April Fools Day they said they were launching a sister channel called Davina. I almost believed it.

Then a couple of weeks back a new channel was added to Freeview called Reality - I think this is the lady's version of Dave. Instead of all day Top Gear & Mock The Week you get all day Snog Marry Avoid

[Anonymous Coward]

Channels

Dave is the old UK Gold 2, aka UKTV Gold 2, which had a timeshift channel, the almost tongue-twisting "UKTV Gold 2 + 1".

UK Gold aka UKTV Gold became G.O.L.D., also known in this household as UKTV Only Fools and Horses.

"Del Boy. Falls. Through. The. Bar....

and Trigger making a face."

[Mark Wilson]

Freesat soon

Hopefully this means we will get Dave on Freesat as it is already on Freeview and Sky, we feel a little left out.

[Anon]

Oh great...

... another excuse for them to put up the price of their services.

[Pypes]

they need an excuse?

I thought they just hit you with an above inflation rise every 6 months as a matter of policy, a bit like petrol duty.

[JB]

Oh noes...

I hope they don't put more programmes in to interrupt the adverts! UK TV has been on the slide since about2001 when they dropped all the slightly obscure, but entertaining stuff for looped repeats of Only Fools and Horses and what was on BBC 1 five minutes ago. They totally lost me when the ad breaks seemed to last longer than the programmes - I just gave up and switched. Somehow this announcement doesn't seem like it will improve the channels, just an excuse to run all the crap from Food Network - I'm sure the UK is totally ready for a Chopped marathon!

[Anonymous Coward]

UK Gold

The whole UKTV network stems from the original UK Gold which was a joint venture between Thames TV and the BBC. The change to UKTV came about shortly after Thames (or their new owners, Pearson IIRC) pulled out.

Look carefully at the end credits of the (dreadful) Red Dwarf from a couple of years back and you'll see that the production credit isn't Dave, but UK Gold.No idea why but the old girl lives on.

Anyway UK Gold was rubbish post 1997. Bring back Glen Allen and Top of the Pops and Doctor Who every weeknight!

[Splatcat]

Dr Who

They'll never bring back the old Dr Whos.... have you seen how much they're getting for them on DVD!

[tmTM]

Red Dwarf?

Dreadful??? Jog on!

[Sir Barry]

Not bothered

I don't bother with these channels, I use the rather excellent 'Catch Up and TV On Demand' service from Virgin.

I get to watch the complete series of a program, without adverts, when I want to and not at specified times dictated by the schedules.

[SImon Hobson]

So do I ...

without paying anyone for a "service" to do it or having to contend with whatever clunky interface some vendor wants to inflict on you.

Recipe: Take one installation of MythTV, add as many networked frontends as you want (watch any recording on any TV), add recording rules to taste. Allow programs to record, then sit back and enjoy.

Of course it doesn't help if a program is never repeated for you to record ...

[jason 7]

Dave

Used to watch this all the time however, I have now seen everything on it 8 times at least so I dont anymore.