BBC Three channel to return in January 2022

If anything it's the other way round, NED3/NPO3 has been around since 1988, and is (obviously) a legacy analogue service.

I still think the original idea (from 20 years ago) of making BBC 3 an all day service, with children's stuff daytime and adult stuff evening would have lead to an overall better awareness and reach.

The same idea was suggested from CBeebies and BBC 4, but it is important to have the break point at 7pm to get the children off to bed. In any case those two channels are chalk and cheese anyway, so no point

The BBC channels all have logos where the BBC is over the channel name, apart from BBC ONE where it is beside it. But as for the respective DOG's the whole thing is on a single line. So how will it be on screen for BBC THREE I wonder? Hopefully not as large and bright as it appears when 3 on 1 programming is shown.

BBC THREE

  BBC
THREE

BBC II!

BBC
 I I !

BBC FOUR's DOG is fantastic, small and quite transparent and tucked right up in the corner. It would be a dream if BBC THREE's followed suit but I don't see it happening sadly.

Not only that, but NPO3 also timeshares with NPO Zappelin, their answer to CBeebies, which also runs a 24 hour spin-off channel, NPO Zappelin Extra, which had previously timeshared with NPO 1 Extra and NPO Zapp Extra. NPO 3 also had a spin-off channel, NPO 3 Extra, but it closed after less than a year.

In the Netherlands, they done the opposite of the 2002 CBBC/CBeebies split, as there, Zappelin (then known as Z@ppelin) was split, with the original brand retained for preschool content, with older kids content moved to Zapp, compared to how the BBC made CBBC the more “grown-up” service, and moved the younger content to CBeebies.

If I am not wrong NPO 3 Extra used to be known as NPO 101

No, from the series called, funnily enough, BBC3, although it was from the same team as TW3, including Ned Sherrin producing. Famously TW3 was axed at the end of 1963 because the Beeb refused to have it on during an election year, to much dismay, so they kept on commissioning lookalike programmes, with Not So Much A Programme More A Way Of Life in 1964, and then BBC3 in 1965.

The famous thing about that series is that it was the one where Kenneth Tynan said the F word for the first time on TV.

Yes, it was known as NPO 101 for many years, but the NPO 3 Extra moniker was indeed very short lived.

Is there any word on timescale for this launch? I'm guessing not (too soon, hoops to jump through), but apologies if I've missed it.

The BBC press release has said that BBC Three will relaunch in January 2022

Was about to post this but Steve beat me to it, only thing I want to add is the title 'Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life' really makes me chuckle, what a great name.

This feels like another backward step by the BBC. The future IS online...With all the controversy about the Licence Fee, I feel the BBC should be spending much more money online to start charging people for these programmes. Surely the BBC should be showing they are truly looking to the future while some basic TV remain. The need to still fund the BBC’s TV/Radio channels via a Licence Fee can then be looked at later down the road.

The reason for that name was of course because it was on three nights a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, though according to the Radio Times Comedy Guide that was seemingly very much to its detriment as they didn't have enough material to fill three shows a week so towards the end there weren't many sketches and instead quite a lot of long discussions.

It's not costing them much more to bring it back yet it'll increase their viewership. Seems like the best thing to do.

And whilst the future is online - we haven't reached that point yet and there is still a market for appointment to view TV.