Channel One is no more.
Channel owners BSkyB pulled the plug on the channel in the early hours of the 1st of February 2011, as part of a number of branding changes for the Sky portfolio of channels.
The channel was originally known as Virgin 1 until Sky purchased it from Virgin. Channel One showed a number of top US shows including the various versions of Star Trek, and geeky spy drama Chuck. Many of these shows will still be available on the Sky platform on the new Sky Living channel, which launched on Sky on the 1st of February.
Channel One was one of the free channels forming the Freeview lineup – it’s been replaced on the Freeview lineup by quiz show Challenge.
Got a comment on the demise of Channel One? Have your say below
typical of the murdoch empire – if you don’t like the competition, buy it out and shut it down.
i think this is shocking and a disapointmet. why has this channel not been replaced with a simlar type of channel instead of a quiz show.
No wonder the quality of programmes had gone down and the good ones were being moved to other subscription channels. It all comes down to squeezing more money out of the general public. Where are we going to get our Star Trek fix now!
Typical murdoch if u aint a sky subscriber he aint going to give you anything for free! This is just another example of his money grabbing empire! It does mean that freeview loses another ‘entertainment’ channel at a time when we are all being encouraged to move to freeview!! why bother of they switch the analogue signal off save the cost of your tv licence!!
val: CBS ACTION is showing star trek DS9 at the moment (on freesat, so maybe no help!)
[quote]New markers of ‘poverty’ are becoming apparent daily in UK life… That is to say, if you have no smart phone contract (£50/month), landline/high speed broadband (£20-£50/month), television package (£20-£50/month) you are ostensibly poor… This is a sick state when that adds up to £150 to normal monthly outgoings including around £100/month council tax, ££££rent, £££ gas/electricity, ££water, £tv license, transport, food, etc before entertainment, holidays, socialising – let alone having kids or dependents…
What is wrong with this country!?
[/quote]
21st centery salves baby get used to it
This is really not fair… Sucker people in with a freeview offering and then take it away… All part of the plan to get us to subscribe to the ‘new’ channel offerings on sky… Channels made available to freeview should have some contractual obligation to go on providing that service for a reasonable period of time – in yearly increments perhaps?
There is an increasing disparity between those who can and are willing to splash out an extra £20-50 a month on TV packages and those who can’t or won’t…
New markers of ‘poverty’ are becoming apparent daily in UK life… That is to say, if you have no smart phone contract (£50/month), landline/high speed broadband (£20-£50/month), television package (£20-£50/month) you are ostensibly poor… This is a sick state when that adds up to £150 to normal monthly outgoings including around £100/month council tax, ££££rent, £££ gas/electricity, ££water, £tv license, transport, food, etc before entertainment, holidays, socialising – let alone having kids or dependents…
What is wrong with this country!?
I didn’t even know about this until the channel disappeared. What’s OFCOM doing about all this? What a great shame to lose my Star Trek shows.
Best bet is to watch everything online theres loads of free sites showing your fav. shows and itll pee off all the satellite/cable corps. give ’em a taste of their own medicine.
I now see the death of terrain TV, freeview was a sop to the masses, the term freeview meant what it said but as we all can see if you create a following for a programme type, then take it off to one of the paid for platform channels if you want to find out what happens you have to pay, Sky will not be satisfied until all viewing is provided by them or we all go back to reading books. (perhaps thats not such a bad idea.)
Thanks for the advanced notice murdoch (or lack thereof). Well thats just about a third of my tv entertainment gone. Back to watching rubbish repeats of friends scrubs and top gear.
It’s pretty shocking to just pull the channel with no prior warning or information, but there are other worthwhile things to do in life apart from watching TV. For those that disagree, go to http://www.justin.tv/directory/entertainment, there are plenty of people streaming most of the shows that were on this channel.
This is really disappointing. There are already too many quiz shows without having a whole extra channel of them! Channel One brought some balance to day time TV on Freeview, especially for people who like science fiction programmes. I think there needs to be a new channel on Freeview offering that genre during the daytime.
So we just wait while Scumdoch byes each half-decent channel one-by-one? Aren’t there any fair competition rules as regards TV broadcasting? This is like Toyota commencing the buy-out of all car companies.
I was a big fan of Channel One especially on the freeview tv, as I loved watching Star Trek. Well It’s there loss if they want to turn of broadcasting and turn away customers viewing a very popular channel. I am so angry
I am extremely disappointed with the lack of notice and the lack of input from viewers to freeview channel changes. It was one of the better channels with something for everyone and replacing it with a channel of quiz shows is just poor. It seems to be an incessant action to manipulate people into getting subscription tv. I and many others don’t want hundreds of channels to wade through at an extortionate price to watch a reasonable choice of programmes. It will be interesting to see what freeview channels are on offer in 5 years and what programmes will be on them. I guess we’ll be watching repeats of the first three series of programmes that are in their 10+ series that have been monopolised by the pay channels….oh wait……
It was with a sense of shock bordering on a terminal infarction that I became aware of the sad disappearance of Channel One. Imagine the scene, if you will, I am dressed in my Star Trek uniform waiting to see the great Kirk and his gallant spacemen friends when matron came in and told me the news. Words fail me. How could Mr Heath allow this to happen? Now that I am not allowed to see The Magic Roundabout any more what am I to do? Read books pray or even take up a hobby such as knitting? Such things I would suggest should not be allowed. I am not a religious man but were able I should wish to have a word in the ear of a holy man and see what he could do about it all.
What a start to 2011 so far!!! We’ve had a serious flood thrre times! We’ve also had an attack of serious mould, destroying a new carpet and new wardrobes! We’ve had two deaths in the family! And the only decent family entertainment channel has been axed!!! We purchased a brand new Freeview TV + HD box in November last year soley to watch all the free channells and we’ve seen many of the channells disappear – swallowed up by Sky!!!
Did you know that part of your TV licence subsidises SKY??? Bet you didn’t!!!
Totally p****d off with it all right now! Murdoch – I hope you sleep well at nights…FAT CATS usually do!!!!
No More Trek!!
ARRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!
rip freeview you were once a good choise of channels now you are just a load of quiz channels and old repeats. the last of the good channels has been killed off before its time
The more this kind of stuff happens and the choice for free to view diminishes, the more people will just illegally download.
This is typical bully boy tactics by the Murdoch Empire. I hope someone hacks the SKY boxes so all their revenue is lost.
FreeView what you doing.. you’re having a bubble bath channel one was great i’m now gonna miss some top shows.. and what you replace it with Quiz Channel.. QUIZZ QUIZZ your having alaugh.. why not put a channel on which was like channel one more film channels.. such as channels like film4 even channels with comedy and get rid of all the dirty channels like babestation etc etc thats a rip off get rid of rabbit nobody with freeview gonna get sky or virgin media people dont have the money..think about us not yourself.
If Murdoch thinks this will make people subscribe to Sky he’s wrong. I used to have it but then realised I spent most of my time flicking through the channels. Anything half-decent from Sky is on YouTube anyway.
Triwinian – Is it really true that our TV license subsidised Sky?
Murdoch try’s to dominate all media when are we going to put a stop to this! the heart has just been pulled out of Freeview perhaps it should be renamed used to be Freeview!
This is bad news. Someone with great influance should tell Murdoch Enough is Enough. Stop being so greedy for money and power. He wants to dominate world media by buying everybody out. I was a sky subscriber for the first 15 months when it was launched and after a while i was fed up of re-runs. Save your money, you can stream online almost anything you want.
Whilst it is a disappointment that Channel One is gone in fairness it was announced some time back. I first heard about it in the forums on digitalspy.co.uk back in November. I didn’t watch much channel One just Criminal Minds really but to replace it with “Challenge TV” is disgrace. Even by freeviews standards this is a crappy channel, most nights prime time consists of “Classic Who Wants to be a Millionaire” do me a favour please! It really seems that freeview is on the slide big time I worry about how it will look 12 months from now.
Guess I’m just gonna have to watch Trek online from other sources. Massive fail there Sky. Massive massive fail.
It is a big disappointment to lose this channel to be replaced by even more rubbish on Freeview.
This still will not make me subscribe to Murdoch’s evil empire
as I remember how he ripped us off in the 90s with the digital switchover,we lost £250 when our box became obsolete and the loss of Sky one which he said would always be free to air ,but he reneged on that one as well.
Deja Vu .
It would be nice if someone shot his satellite down or even better,people unsubscribed till they got a fair deal from the hated Murdoch.
The only reason I watch this channel is to see Voyager. Its a liberty the channel has gone especially with Voyager so close to the final episode.
Typical of that w****e Murdock. to do something like this and not a hint that he would. I would not give that creep the pickings from my toenails, hes not good enough.
Freeview is so full of c r a p, at this rate it will not be worth bothering with at all
I think whats happed here is that Murdoch has woken up to the fact that he cannot stop digital terrestrial TV nor can he influence it’s direction in short he can’t win. So we can expect to see more wrecking tactics. Lets face it with terrestrial digital TV no more lost viewing when it snows, rains or it’s too windy. We were told oh no you can’t have Hi-def through your aerial oh look now we have.
I don’t know whats happening in the rest of Europe perhaps we should invite other countries to bring some of their talent to UK channels (Murdoch can’t have bought up the rights for star trek every where).
It’s clear he didn’t buy Virgin 1 to expand his business. He bought it as part of continuous campaign to systematically destroy freeview and in doing so get more people to subscribe to Sky.
This should be illegal.
Why are all freeview channels, especially good ones getting phased out, not all of us have the pleasure of paying for a tv licence then paying between
Why is it that Sky TV is being allowed to dominate ?, they charge us to view programs that they already get paid for by the advertising that they carry, I decided to cancel my Sky subscription for this reason, but why cant we have all these channels that carry adverts on Freeview or Freesat ?. As for the loss of Channel One I for one am missing it, I knew nothing until this morning when I put in 20 on the remote and found it has stopped broadcasting… Sky has got to be controlled so as we get more choice of where we can get our TV channels from, More channels on Freeview and Freesat please, We cannot afford the Sky subscriptions and I will not be going back to these con-artists…
Hasn’t Murdoch and Co got enough money? Last picture of him I saw made me think he hasn’t got long. Maybe he thinks he can take it with him! He want’s to leave some room in his luggage for his camel and needle!!!
This is just a taste of what we can expect from Freeview. I would rather have no TV at all than pay for Sky and I love TV, so there Mr M! Maybe people will read more, sounds like a good excuse for the government to increase tax on books by several hundred percent.
Rant off.
I subscribed to Virgin media just before xmas,(2010) loving channel 1. Now they’ve sold out to sky! B…tards. I got rid of sky last year cos they got to expensive.
Regards
F..K..G T.ATS
I think its an absolute disgrace that sky have done this i enjoyed watching channel 1 apparantly skys reason for this is something to do with ch1 showing the same programmes as sky1 rubbish i also read today the same programmes as sky3 strange i’ve never seen star trek or x-files on sky3 its nothing to do with that sky just dont the like competition and oh wot a surprise sky are now showing star trek on there new channel sky atlantic shame on you sky… I for 1 would never be a sky customer!!!
The removal of one of the few decent Freeview channels and replacement by yet another space-waster with no substantive programming is a disgrace, but on the part of BBC and OFCOM. Murdoch’s Sky is the animal that it is, wolfing down whatever it can eat, but BBC and OFCOM have a duty to make sure that the licence fee paying public, who have been forced to buy into Freeview by purchasing receivers or new tvs, are provided with a sufficient choice of programming. By sufficient I mean in terms of quality within individual channels but also in terms of breadth of choice, so that insult isnt added to injury by pushing the same people into Sky/Virgin etc subscriptions.
Allowing Sky to buy up the Virgin channels (part of the whole ‘let Virgin broadcast Sky1’ deal, if I recall correctly)in full knowledge of what was likely to happen is a massive failure on the part of the supposed champions of the licence-paying public.
It was one of the best channels on Freeview.
Everyone has their own taste and some will love the quiz channel but most won’t, in effect its one less channel.
I fully support Freeview as a concept but if a few better channels don’t start then it will slide into oblivion.
Is it me or … I have some access to Sky channels – basically freesat channels and so may not be representative of them all but are there even more ads on these channels than the standard Freeview ones and with a Sky subscription aren’t you kind of paying to watch ads? I am a throwback I’m sure but I also won’t pay to wear clothes with makers names on them – its taking work away from the old sandwich-board guys. :-)
absolutely disgusting. First they replace sky sports news with sky 3 plus one (yeah thanks for that) and now pull channel 1! I for one will never get sky but they should provide another channel free. How about sky sports 1! Lol.
I think this throws down the gauntlet to Mr Branson as the only business man who might take on Mr Murdoch.
Now im pissed off i hate all these greedy money hunger b*******, i loved treky and now i’d have to pay to watch something that was made years ago….
This is a follow on from Liebours, get rich quick schemes and social testing. Next time you get a cold where do you think it comes from? Note how when the ‘swine flu’ begins they start pushing the vaccines and medications that take years to produce and test. Easy money, if I had that much foresight I would be rich as well by now.
They are all the same, governments, drug co’s, BBC full of experts, and yes Sky. Why are they called Sky! Because they are up their, us down here and you can guess where their s**t goes.
Star Trek is available on freesat on one of the CBS channels. Currently showing the original series (in widescreen) and ds9. It’s better than nothing & they’re also showing Boston Legal, one of my all time favs.
Yet another good freeview channel gone. I agree with everyone else; who the devil wants yet another quiz programme? There is enough rubbish on TV as it is. Why do away with a decent set of programmes?
no surprising that people downloading series instead of watching them on TV. I did watch channel one despite the tons of ads but. Now no way I can’t watch TV anymore and vote for alternative way to get my star trek fix.
Typical murdoch if you won’t pay a sky subscription he won’t give you anything for free! OFCOM take note SKY suppresses choice unless you are prepared to pay them silly amounts of money. This is another example of his money grabbing empire!
It’s been TIMED to try to turn free watchers into subscribers.
This is why a nonchalant sales minion from virgin called me up couple of days ago and tried to get me to agree to take the phone and the TV package as well as the internet (no extra cost – honest guv).
I got the carrot and then I got the stick.
Feels like I’ve been felt up by some dirty old boardroom mumbler.
Creepy…
Getting a bit bored of the Trek anyway. Criminal minds was often good though – if a bit silly.
Chuck made me angry. Spies aren’t nice and they’re not funny. They’re backstabbers and treacherous swine. And the Fresh Prince was just mostly jiggerish to me. Why’s he supposed to be ‘fresh’ anyway? What the hell does that even mean?
What else was on there… don’t think I used to watch anything else.
Oh well… bye bye channel one. I’ll miss you a little bit.
Virgin one was a better name, too.
typical of the murdoch empire – if you don’t like the competition, buy it out and shut it down.
i agree with the above comment
i was an early viewer on cable at the start of it all and found it was at reasonable costs – then sky came along and bought out the competition (film channels etc) and rebranded them as sky movies etc. i then ditched the whole cable thing because of murdock and rising costs
then freeview came along and i watched that and then freesat came along and i watched that
now virging tv has gone and now channel one has gone- the nice murdock business wants it all
doesn’t look like its enough for the murdock empire get control of the airwaves and broadacst on it – murdock wants us to pay for all our tv entertainment, plus watch the murdock enforced approved adverts
ha ha i have news for them
they will never ever get any more of my cash and if everybody took the same view
bring it on i say and lets see if they are still around in another 5 years
the murcock empire will crash and burn in the end
typical of the murdoch empire – if you don’t like the competition, buy it out and shut it down.
we can all get by without murdock owned tv
goodbye them