Rebranded Channels

[JAS84]

Could we count BSB?

Merged with Sky in 1990 and most of the BSB channels were replaced with Sky equivalents - the only two that survived in from BSB's launch was Movies and Sports - Galaxy became what is now Sky One (IIRC it had a different name in 1990), Now became Sky News and at least one of them vanished altogether.

Yes, Sky One was originally Sky Channel. It had already rebranded to Sky One by the time of the merger though.

A couple of other examples. Fox Kids became Jetix, after being bought by Disney. It later rebranded again to Disney XD. The channel now called Pop Max was originally Kix, renamed to match the other CSC kids channels after they were bought by Sony.

[swaggyboi128]

I think Sky Arts was a rebrand of Artsworld.

The first Sky Arts was infact from NOW's arts programming they hadn't aired yet. The second Sky Arts was a rebranded Artsworld.

[RegularCapital]

Fox Kids became Jetix, after being bought by Disney.

It took Fox Kids Europe around three years to introduce the Jetix brand, after Disney acquired Fox Family Worldwide and the majority stake in Fox Kids Europe in late 2001, in 2004, the Jetix brand was phased in as a programming block, with a complete rebrand in the UK on 1st January 2005.

Disney majority-owned Fox Kids Europe was granted a branding licence with no fixed term from News Corporation (Fox), which is why they continued using the Fox Kids name.

The Jetix brand was introduced because FKE wanted to produce some programming that will air in the United States and could not use the Fox Kids name within the U.S. due to the limitations of the branding licence, henceforth ABC Family, Toon Disney and Fox Kids Worldwide formed the Jetix programming alliance.

Disney didn't completely own Fox Kids/Jetix Europe until 2009, which was when they had plans to turn it into Disney XD. I've wrote all about it on my wiki (with sources): https://regularcapital-audiovisual-resea...2004-2010)

[Ballyboy]

The UKTV rebrand of 2009?. I wish uktv people didn’t rebrand to Blighty. I watched the channel with my dad a lot. mostly top gear and have I got news for you

[nwtv2003]

The UKTV rebrand of 2009?. I wish uktv people didn’t rebrand to Blighty. I watched the channel with my dad a lot. mostly top gear and have I got news for you

That was a rebrand for the sake of a rebrand, rather than a change in ownership. UKTV People was an odd channel back in the day rerunning very old HIGNFY and Top Gear as well as countless factual documentaries. People and UKTV Documentary was the result when UK Horizons split into two, and I think they didn’t know what to do with the channels. Unsurprisingly Blighty was the first to go, sacrificed for Drama.

[Lynetwork]

Virgin1 to Channel One was a sad change for me as I really liked the former's presentation and their puppet mascot Red, which got replaced with a rather bland and generic look. I'm not surprised they went with a more simple look for Channel One since Sky clearly had slim-to-zero intentions for it.

The UKTV channels - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKTV#Former

Following the UKTV rebranding was my first proper foray into TV presentation, so I have a weird and very specific nostalgia around that era. I remember being so excited about the whole thing unfolding; though in hindsight I'm not sure any of the rebrandings worked as well as G2 into Dave, it sure was a lot of fun when they announced the new names for each 'bouquet' of channels (entertainment, factual then lifestyle).

Then fast forward a decade and three of them get sold! And the only one of them that got a post-sale rebrand was Home into HGTV.

[XIII]

5Star started life as Five Life then rebranded 18 months later to Fiver then became 5* in 2011 before rebranding to its current name (which is the same as the old name but with the word Star).

5USA was Five US before adding the A in 2009.

[Stuart]

Unsurprisingly Blighty was the first to go, sacrificed for Drama.

I always thought that was an odd decision. They'd already had UK/UKTV Drama, which was rebranded as Alibi. They then shut Blighty to create Drama . . . again.

Confused thinking within the branding department, methinks. :o

[W. Knight]

Another example is probably the Parliamentary Channel, a privately-owned cable channel acquired by BBC in 1998, and it's now BBC Parliament.

[WillPS]

I think Sky Arts was a rebrand of Artsworld.

The first Sky Arts was infact from NOW's arts programming they hadn't aired yet. The second Sky Arts was a rebranded Artsworld.

The first to make it to air was. Sky Arts was actually promised (but never launched) for Astra before Now and BSB had even launched:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ1QveN9SQ4&t=182s

That is perhaps why the branding was on the shelf, ready to go for it.

[L1]

Fiver was a crap name - just seemed as though they were trying to jump on the Dave 'witty channel names' bandwagon at the time.

Does old S2 and UTV2 rebranding as ITV2 in Scotland and NI count? Strange looking back that the nations had there 'own' ITV2 when you look at the situation nowadays.

[Neil Jones]

Does old S2 and UTV2 rebranding as ITV2 in Scotland and NI count? Strange looking back that the nations had there 'own' ITV2 when you look at the situation nowadays.

Well UTV2 was effectively ITV2 in new colours with the occasional opt-out I believe, and S2 by the end of its life was ITV2 in new colours. Not really "rebrands" as such as they were just simulcasts to a large extent, until they dropped the charade.

Wiki suggests UTV2 didn't have any adverts at all during its lifetime.

[Ashley]

Wiki suggests UTV2 didn't have any adverts at all during its lifetime.

Wasn’t UTV2 originally called TVyou (or was it the other way around and it got renamed to TVyou from UTV2)?

[Neil Jones]

Wiki suggests UTV2 didn't have any adverts at all during its lifetime.

Wasn’t UTV2 originally called TVyou (or was it the other way around and it got renamed to TVyou from UTV2)?

Believe UTV2 was the later name.

[Brekkie]

Didn't they have a dirty feed as well so had large opaque DOGs obscurring the ITV2 DOG?