Music Channels

Here's a video for what looks like a contender the 2014 rebrand which thankfully never made it to air, and would have involved the famous headphones logo disappearing:

End of an era as its Chart Show TV’s last day on air 😪 Loved this brand from when I was watching on ITV as a kid in the 90s through to when I managed the channel between 2010-2014! So many amazing memories though...❤️ pic.twitter.com/FyQnDE3uKt

— Leyton Bracegirdle (@leytonb) October 31, 2019

According to the listings on Sky, it now looks like Chart Show TV and Chart Show Hits will rebrand at midnight.

It's not entirely clear from the listings when the Vault is going to rebrand. Looks like it could be 1am.

There's also something rather unusual in the listings on Sky for what will be Trace Urban tomorrow, with "This is Chart Show TV" showing in listings at 8:30pm, which I'm guessing is an error in the listings.

There's definitely a rumor going round Twitter by Lee Thompson, who works in the music TV industry, that most of the "Box" channels will end up being rebranded to "4"-branded music channels.

Yeah... I don't think "4 Upfront" or "4 Hits" have any ring to them.

Three UK music videos channels are rebranding from this Fri (Nov 1).

The Vault rebrands to Trace Vault
Chartshow Hits rebrands to Trace Latina
Chart Show TV rebrands to Trace Urban

And it's looks like Ch4-owned music channels might be changing their names very soon indeed too.

— Lee Thompson (@leethommo) October 30, 2019

People suspected that's why The Box did its retro thing back in September.

Expect all the channel names to turn to '4' names instead. And all the former Emap/Bauer brands will disappear. Most likely exactly a year after they split and took full ownership of them.

— Lee Thompson (@leethommo) October 31, 2019

The "4" thing hopefully wont come on air in the future

I could see the "4Music" brand being used for thematic channels (with a rebrand of the original 4Music maybe to something like 4M? It'd be about time), similar to how M6 Music works in France, with former M6 Music Hits/Black/Club

Not true. There will be some small changes but the scale and timeframe is completely wrong.

Trace Vault doesn't seem to be completely focused on urban music. It has programs called 'Focus: Backstreet Boys/Christina Aguilera/Britney'

The overnight rebrands were a bit odd, and nothing like I've ever seen before with channel rebrands.

The rebrands basically took place by what looked like a switch to a different feed with different graphics, at completely random points.

For all 3 channels, the rebrand took place at similar, but different times, and all happened in the middle of a music video, where it switched straight to the middle of a different music video, switching to different programme names for some channels.

Chart Show TV and Chart Shot Hits were already showing programming based on the new channels before the switch happened.

Chart Show TV rebranded at 00:20am, where the programme changed from My Block to Certisounds

Chart Show Hits rebranded at 00:16am, where the programme name stayed the same (Late Night Latina)

The Vault rebranded at 00:34am, where the programme changed from Top 20 It's Over Break Up Songs (in the middle of no. 2, just after an advert break) to Playlist.

Trace Vault was always going to be a mainstream channel (with a slightly more Urban focus than the Vault), as described on the Sky media website:


"Mainstream nostalgic fun music, home of the biggest videos from the 90’s and 00’s & takeovers with lots of familiar faces. Hit driven, welcoming to all and always upbeat."

https://www.skymedia.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Trace-Launch-One-Pager-2019-Online.pdf