Tuesday 18 July 2017
Freesat, the UK's subscription-free satellite TV platform, is delighted to announce that UKTV's Dave and Home, two of the UK's best-known and highly-regarded television channels, are to launch on the platform on 1 August. Dave will be appearing on channel slot 157 and Home on 166.
Dave is one of the UK's most-watched non-PSB channels and hosts a brilliantly addictive mix of comedy and reality shows, including new and original commissions, established favourites, and hit series from America. Winner of Best Entertainment Channel at the 2016 Broadcast Digital Awards, Dave has become a byword for reliably funny content and is packed with the biggest names in British comedy, appearing on shows like Taskmaster, Dave Gorman Modern Life is Goodish, Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled, Crackanory, Red Dwarf XI and Dara O'Briain's Go 8 Bit.
Home is the UK's only dedicated homes channel, bursting with inspirational home and gardens programming such as My Flat-Pack Home, Nick Knowles' Original Features, Make My Home Bigger, Fantasy Homes by the Sea, and Kitchen SOS. Hit series on Home also include Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, DIY SOS, Escape to the Country, The Hotel Inspector and A Place in the Sun: Home or Away. The channel provides welcoming, energetic and stylish programming, featuring practical and inspiring homes content together with heartwarming stories.
Commenting on the launch, Alistair Thom, Managing Director at Freesat said,
Everyone at Freesat is 100% thrilled that these two iconic and hugely popular channels are coming to Freesat, where they will be available to watch for free. We are all about giving our 4 million viewers the most compelling content and Dave and Home are spilling over with both new and established shows that people love watching. Our substantial audiences can easily find them using our great electronic programme guide and app."
Simon Michaelides, Chief Commercial Officer at UKTV, said,
We're delighted to be launching Dave and Home on Freesat. With original programmes such as Taskmaster and Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit, Dave is one of the nation's most watched non-public service channels and Home has grown by over 20% year on year thanks to shows such as Ground Force and Escape to the Country. Launching on Freesat means UKTV will be entertaining more viewers than ever before."
Dave and Home join UKTV's Drama (158), Yesterday (159) and Really (160) channels which launched on Freesat in December 2015.
As well as providing over 200 channels of free, recordable TV, Freesat also offers on-demand and catch-up favourites such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4, YouTube and Netflix - all of which has helped to drive industry-leading customer satisfaction.
ENDS
For further information, please contact:
Freesat
John Elliott / Juliet Callaghan / Andreas Grueter 020 7250 1446 / 07894 709 826 freesat@powerscourt-group.com
UKTV
Ali Laurie, Network Communications Executive
About Freesat
Freesat is the UK's subscription-free satellite television platform, offering over 200 channels of brilliant free recordable TV together with the latest streaming services, including catch-up and pay-as-you-go. First and foremost, we're about giving our viewers content, choice and amazing value. But we're also innovative, ambitious and agile, whether that's adding new services on our platform, finding new ways to help the channels that work with us, or exporting our technology to broadcasters in new territories. We invest our profits back into the business, helping to maintain a great user experience for all our customers.
Established in 2007 by the BBC and ITV, Freesat reaches 2 million homes each week and is available via TV and set-top box. Our customers have access to a wide range of channels providing entertainment, news, music, and children's programming and on-demand and catch-up favourites such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4, YouTube and Netflix.
Our user interface and management platform, Metaphor provides international TV companies with connected TV solutions, we are a founding member of the Free TV Alliance in Europe and in 2016 we launched an audience analytics and insight service in association with TVbeat.
About UKTV
UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching over 41m viewers every month.
The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market. The company's most recent financial results showed record-breaking year-end revenue of £344.8m and EBITDA of £91.3m. It invested £151.2m in programming and related launches last year, and is a significant investor in British creativity.
The network embraces technology to deliver inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.
Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.