Dave

Dave is a television channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland owned by UKTV, aimed largely at men. The channel is available on cable, IPTV, Freeview and some satellite platforms. The channel took the name Dave in October 2007, but it had been on air under various identities and formats since October 1998. It shows repeats of BBC (and occasionally, other UK channels) shows, original programming, and programmes imported from America. Previously, it was known as UKTV G2. While Dave is available FTA on Freeview, this is not the case with satellite.

UK Gold Classics and UK Gold 2
UK Gold Classics, UKTV's first digital-only channel, was launched in October 1998; around this time UK Gold began to move towards newer programmes instead of older ones; the 'classics' lineup included a number of early shows, including some black-and-white programmes, which had been acquired in the early years of the UK Gold service.

The 'Classics' format lasted just seven months, however; from 2 April 1999, the channel was renamed to UK Gold 2, and screened morning programmes from UK Gold time-shifted to the evening of the same day.

UKG2 and UKTV G2
The UK Gold subsidiary channel was again relaunched with a completely new programme line-up and renamed UKG² on 12 November 2003. The channel was promoted as being an edgier alternative to UK Gold; like that channel, the output was 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; however, unlike Play, the channel did not include music videos.

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 announcer, Colin Murnane, 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" "Ucktavagahtoo for watching not pronouncin" and according to Digital Spy said "just what this channel needs a show with two more letters. This is QI on UKTV G2 on th B O X".

Initially, the channel broadcast in the evenings only, but during the 'G2' era the decision was made to expand hours into the daytime; to expand the programming line-up, comedy was joined by popular-factual and magazine shows which were already running on UKTV People (now Blighty) such as Top Gear and Airport.

Programming history
Some shows available on Dave include Mock the Week, Top Gear, Red Dwarf, QI, Have I Got News for You, Little Britain, Dragons' Den and stand up comedy shows, among many others. Dave is a regular target of jokes on new episodes Top Gear, Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You, as it broadcasts topical comedies years after the events the shows refer to are over.

On 7 October 2005, it was announced that they 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 digital on-screen graphic. There was talk that this could lead to a channel but it never happened.

In February 2006, they 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, 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.

Dave 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 (7am to 6pm) bandwidth once occupied by UKTV Bright Ideas. Dave is available daily, from 7am to 3am, on all platforms. It uses the tagline "the home of witty banter" and uses Ralph Ineson as an announcer, along with David Flynn (now with Gold), 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, the channel began broadcasting in widescreen, along with the other UKTV channels.

In April 2009, they aired 3 new instalments of Red Dwarf, titled 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 show 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.

In June 2009, the logo was updated to incorporate the 'circle' logo branding of all the new UKTV channels (for example Blighty, and Really). At this time, the voice of Dave became Nigel Grover, aka, Scott Saunders, who had previously worked at a number of local radio stations.

Dave HD
On 29 July 2011, UKTV announced that it had secured a deal with BSkyB to launch three more high-definition channels on Sky. 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 channels.

Timeshift
A one-hour timeshifted service of the channel - then known as UKTV G2 - began to operate on 1 November 2004, under the name UKTV G2 +1. As UKTV G2 at the time was an evenings-only service, the timeshift also operated in the evenings only, using the satellite and cable capacity which, during daytime, was used by the now-defunct UKTV Bright Ideas. The sharing arrangement meant that when UKTV G2's hours extended into daytime, the timeshift remained evenings-only.

At the time of the Dave relaunch, UKTV Bright Ideas closed, freeing up the space to allow UKTV G2 +1 to expand its hours to follow those of the parent channel fully; due to the main channel's relaunch as Dave, UKTV G2 +1 became Dave +1.

The timeshift was initially available on the Virgin Media and Sky platforms; from 22 January 2009, following UKTV's acquisition of a further Freeview broadcast slot, Dave +1 was made available on the digital terrestrial platform.

On 24 February 2009, Dave +1 was renamed Dave ja vu (a play on the phrase déjà vu) on all platforms; this was carried out to "strengthen the brand's positioning as the home of witty banter" according to UKTV bosses.

During the channel's World Cup 2006 coverage, UKTV was not permitted to timeshift the World Cup matches; for this reason, UKTV G2 +1 (as it was then known) became a full-time 'mirror' of the main channel's schedule during the tournament, returning to its one-hour delay the day after the competition concluded.

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 8am-4am to 2am-4am.

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), Jo Brand's Big Splash (417,000) 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 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).

Upcoming content

 * Red Dwarf - New series, coming in September 2012

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 like Russell Kane, Jo Brand, Adam Buxton, Paul Foot and Alex Horne along with occasional features.