Dave is a television channel broadcasting in the
United
Kingdom
and Ireland
and is owned by UKTV.
The channel is available on
Satellite,
Cable,
IPTV and
Freeview platforms. A
timeshift service with the name
Dave ja vu (a play on the phrase déjà vu) is available on the
Virgin Media,
Sky Digital and
Freeview platforms. It was originally called
Dave+1, and launched on
Freeview on 22 January 2009 under this name.
However, it was renamed on 24 February 2009, to "strengthen the
brand's positioning as the home of witty banter." This service
launched on 1 November 2004 with the name
UKTV G2
+1. At first UKTV G2+1 timeshared with
UKTV Bright Ideas meaning it broadcasted
from 6:00am to 6:00pm.
History
UK Gold Classics was launched when
UK Gold
began to move towards newer programmes instead of older ones. From
2 April 1999 it was renamed to
UK Gold 2, and
screened morning programmes from UK Gold time-shifted to the
evening of the same day. It was again relaunched with a completely
new programme lineup and renamed
UKG² on 12
November 2003. Along with the rest of the
UKTV
network, the "UK" prefix was changed to "UKTV" on 8 March 2004 and
therefore the channel name changed to
UKTV G2. The
continuity announcers had been known to make fun of the extreme
length of the full name saying that "it's for watching rather than
saying", "more laughs than letters in its name" or "more letters
than
Postman Pat".
The output of the channel is mainly comedy from the
BBC with some shows produced inhouse. A fair amount is
similar to the comedy output of
UK Play/Play
UK before that channel's closure.
Some shows available on Dave include
Mock the Week,
Top Gear,
Two Pints of Lager and
a Packet of Crisps,
Red
Dwarf,
Bottom,
Friday Night with
Jonathan Ross,
QI,
Have I Got News for You,
The Catherine Tate
Show, "
World Rally",
Whose Line Is It
Anyway? and
Little
Britain. Every Friday and Saturday Dave has a "Nothing
but...", which is themed to only one programme running for the
entire evening.
On 7 October 2005 it was announced that UKTV G2 would show sports
programming. This new line-up was called UKTV Sport and included a
new show by the same name. UKTV Sport also had its own logo and
DOG. There was talk that
this could lead to a channel but it never happened.
In February 2006, UKTV G2 picked up the rights to show highlights
of the
RBS 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, UKTV G2 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
simulcasted 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.
Rebranding and Freeview launch
In September 2007, UKTV announced that they would relaunch and
rename UKTV G2 to Dave on 15 October. UKTV said the name of the
channel was chosen because "Everybody knows a bloke called Dave".
The rebrand included the channel being available free-to-air on
digital
terrestrial platform,
Freeview, replacing
UKTV Bright Ideas which only averaged 0.1%
of the audience share. The move to Freeview saw Dave launch in the
bandwidth previously used by
UKTV
History which was moved to the time limited (07:00-18:00)
bandwidth once occupied by
UKTV Bright
Ideas. Dave is available daily, from 7 am to 3 am, on all
platforms. It uses the tagline "the home of witty banter" and uses
Ralph Ineson as an announcer, along
with David Flynn,
Phill Jupitus,
Iain Lee , and Radio 1 DJ
Greg James, who announce during the
prime-time schedule.
To ensure that all Freeview viewers receive the channel on number
19, UKTV briefly placed a re-tuning notice on the programme's
information.
From 31 January 2008, Dave began broadcasting in
widescreen, along with the other UKTV channels.
In April 2009, Dave aired 3 new installments of
Red Dwarf, entitled
Back To Earth. This marks the
channel's first foray into scripted original programming. During
the airing of the Red Dwarf miniseries 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 show it is even suggested
that the station is named after him.
Back to Earth brought
Dave record breaking viewing figures, not just in the context of
Dave's past, but for digital television in general.
In June 2009 Dave's logo was updated to incorporate the 'circle'
logo branding of all the new UKTV channels (for example Blighty,
and Really). (see uktv.co.uk)
Reception
Within just one month of its launch, Dave had become the tenth
largest
television channel in the
UK. The broadcaster puts daily averages at around 3 million viewers
, although much of the growth may be attributed to its presence on
Freeview ; nonetheless, it
is performing significantly better in pay TV homes than UKTV G2
ever did. 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's positive reception is proven by an attraction of 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 shows with the highest ratings are
Mock the Week (over 420,000 viewers),
QI (over 400,000),
Top Gear (350,000) and
Dragons' Den (about
300,000).
The first episode of
Red
Dwarf: Back to Earth attracted 2,060,000 viewers. The
highest rating original commission before this had been
Red Bull X-Fighters (about
185,000).
Sponsorship
As a commercial television channel,
Dave raises revenue
through advertising and sponsorship. For example,
Halfords sponsors motoring programmes and
Old Speckled Hen ale sponsors prime time
programming after 9PM.
Programming
Current programming
Traffic Cops
Former programming
References
External links
)
)
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
