UK Horizons to Close

Interestingly this would bring Living back into the "UK" family, as it used to be called UK Living.

However, I do think that the new names are a bit of a mouthful, especially UKTVG2, which when said together sounds a bit meaningless.

Surely they wouldn't call FTN "UKTV FTN" - it'll probably have a new name, perhaps even something like UKTV+.

I wonder what the BBC will think of this - could it be possible that they'll have a say in the rest of the channels' output, or the rest of them could show some BBC programmes?

I agree. If they are going to UKtv brand Challenge, Living, FTN, Trouble, etc, surely it would be better if they renamed them using the current UK prefix. So UK Living, UK Challenge, UK Trouble, and perhaps renaming FTN UKtv or something like UK mix or something UKFTN is a mouthful, UKTVFTN is more though!

UK Gold to be called UKTV Gold etc..? Madness! I really do wonder if those marketing people aren't being kept busy enough. They must throw ideas around at the meeting - "I know, let's make our channels a mouthful to say and provide so many channels that people really don't have a clue what programmes to expect and which particular programme features on which channel!". Their press release spiel is hilarious.

It's a disgrace to be honest, its a far cry from the days of 1997 when they only had 4 channels and they also promised they would launch no more than 6 or 8 channels and to be honest it has gone too far now. It doesn't help when they launch a lifestyle channel once every five minutes, which is giving the UKTV brand a bad image.

What was wrong when we only had UK Gold, Horizons, Style, Arena and later Play, what was wrong with that? Nothing.

Shame to see UK Horizons go, as it is a decent channel, though I always thought it was popular as there was a lot of demand for the channel to be put onto Sky Analogue in 1998.

UKTV Gold? What the hell does that mean? People are already established with the brand that is UK Gold, it has been in use for over 10 years! It is stupid, plus that also means ANOTHER rebrand, they have had far too many, granted the beer glass idents were shlt, I don't see any need for another rebrand.

To be honest the only good UKTV channel now is UK G2, as it seems to focus more on Comedy and recent programming that being its aim.

The branding of all the channels as the same thing is a good idea. Sky have loads of channels starting 'Sky...' so why not UKTV

Well they won't have to change much, the idents already say 'UK Gold, part of UKTV '

But UKTV Gold sounds stupid, different to the past god knows how many years, and a complete waste of time. UKtv is the name of the company, and each of their channels would begin with UK... simple. And only the current flextech channels would have to change.

Problem is, Telewest own flextech, and are intent on using their 'asset' to promote themselves. I am afraid it will probably be UKtv _____ but it is surely better than Telewest Gold and Telewest BrightIdeas...

'Sky' is a single syllable word which easily rolls off the tounge. 'UKTV' is a four syllabled acronym which is just about feasible to say by itself, but doesn't work alongside any other name. Can you honestly imagine announcements which start 'now on UKTV Gold' or even worse 'this is UKTVG2' or 'UKTVFTN'. It just doesn't work, the channel names become lost in almost coded acronyms - it's almost like the way American local stations have 4 letter callsigns starting with 'W' or 'K', followed by 3 more letters, and then -TV on the end which mean nothing in themselves, leading pretty much universally to all stations creating a second, more recognisable brand for themselves.

UKTV have just about sold the idea of the 'UKTV network' where there is a family of channels all starting with 'UK'. Why would they want to change that now? What good will it do? Why bring Flextech's channels (which aren't the same thing) into the fold? Why ditch the brand name of UK Gold (which ultimately, is where the whole of UKTV came from in the first place) after nearly 12 years?

It makes no sense, it's just being done for the sake of it.

I'm not saying that 'UKTV'is the best solution.... but renaming all the flextech channels witth the same prefix is a good idea

Living, Bravo, Trouble, Challenge and FTN will not be re-branded as UK TV channels. This has been confirmed by staff from Challenge TV on their forum, according to a post on Digital Spy.

Not keen on this whole UK TV re-brand so i'm glad Bravo etc arn't taking part.

Maybe they should rebrand Challenge, then they could get Challenge back on form. At the moment, there's about an hour in the morning that's true challenge with family fortunes. The rest of the day should be renamed REALITY.

Why can't they launch a sister Challenge channel Challenge:Reality, and have the old Challenge, return to its Challenge TV jigsaw question mark, jolly old game show self.