UK.TV

From Free net encyclopedia

UK.TV is a subscription television channel in Australia and New Zealand, screening British entertainment programming, sourced mainly from the archives of the BBC, RTL Group (mainly TALKBACKThames material) and ITV Plc. The company is 60% owned by FOXTEL, 20% owned by BBC Worldwide and 20% owned by RTL Group.

It was first launched in Australia in August 1996, and became available in New Zealand via SKY Television, in November 2003.

It shows a mix of old series like Are You Being Served?, Dad's Army, The Jewel in the Crown, Never the Twain, The Sweeney and The Bill that have already been seen on free-to-air terrestrial television in Australia. It also screens popular soap operas like the BBC's EastEnders and Granada's Coronation Street, which are no longer shown on free-to-air in Australia, as well as current episodes of shows such as Casualty, Holby City, and the UK version of The Weakest Link.

In addition to British programming it has repeated Australian soap operas Sons and Daughters and Prisoner (known in the UK as Prisoner Cell Block H) which were both produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation (now owned by RTL). In both cases the entire series was shown; the Sons and Daughters repeat run was from 1997 until 2000 and Prisoner ran from 1997 until October 2004.

It also showed the Television New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street for several years in the 1990s, after that series had briefly been screened by SBS on free-to-air television in Australia.

In Australia, UK.TV, like all pay TV drama channels, is legally required to spend 10 per cent of their total program expenditure on funding new eligible (Australian and New Zealand) drama programs [1]. One such production was miniseries Changi.

UKTV now has separate services in Australia and New Zealand, partly to reflect different local tastes, but also for rights reasons, as many programmes, particularly EastEnders and Coronation Street, are shown on free-to-air in New Zealand on TV One and Prime.

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