In a blaze of publicity (well, they’d bought the back pages of either one or both of the free London papers), Virgin 1 launched last night at 9pm.
Virgin 1 (like most Virgin products – no relation to my employers), is partially Virgin Media’s response to the petty falling out between Virgin Media and Sky One. As all Virgin Media fans of 24, Lost or Battlestar Galactica know, Sky One is not carried on its service, along with Sky News and Sky Sports News.
So rushed into existence comes Virgin 1, to fill some of that hole. It takes the place of Ftn on Freeview, but is available on Sky Digital alongside an obligatory “+1” flavour. I very much doubt that Sky are paying anything to Virgin Media to cover it.
So what fantastic programming have they got? Well unfortunately, the Virgin 1 website doesn’t actually provide a schedule of the “Proper Telly” they’ll be carrying. But whizzing through the Sky EPG isn’t inspiring. There’s one quite decent show which they showed on their launch night – The Riches starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver. This did reasonably well on FX in the US and has been renewed for another series. The channel has also bought the Sarah Connor Chronicles which is showing on Fox in the US. I say is but it hasn’t started yet, and isn’t due on Fox until early 2008.
So if The Riches runs for three hours a week (at least two repeats), what’s on for the rest of that time? Well, it’s brutally unfair, since there are plenty of other channels showing equally as poor fare, but here’s tomorrow’s schedule:
0600 Knight Rider (staple of Bravo)
0700 Takeshi’s Castle (staple of Challenge TV)
0730 Takeshi’s Castle
0800 Fresh Prince of Bel Air
0830 Fresh Prince of Bel Air
0900 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (courtesy Challenge, courtesy of ITV)
1000 Nothing To Declare (never heard of it)
1030 Beach Patrol (who knows)
1100 Street Crime UK Uncut (Uncut? At 11am in the morning – it must be tough)
1130 Street Crime UK (This edition isn’t labelled as uncut – Bravo regular)
1200 Cops On Camera
1300 Take It Or Leave It (Challenge TV originated Richard Arnold quiz)
1400 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
1500 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (another major purchase has seen this franchise depart Sky One)
1600 Knight Rider (NBC are talking about a remake you know?)
1700 Fresh Prince of Bel Air
1730 Fresh Prince of Bel Air
1800 Take It Or Leave It
1900 Cops On Camera
2000 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
2100 The Unit (previously shown on Bravo – not actually that bad)
2200 The Real Exorcist: Devil Hunter (This is “New & Exclusive” apparently)
2300 Criminal Minds (Virgin 1’s launch programme on Monday night)
0000 Play Live Roulette (Oh dear)
So there you have it. Also showing at weekends are decent programmes like The X-Files, which’ll be edited to fit a 1600 slot. But it’s not exactly going to have Sky One worried, and it’ll take some real investment to become a major player in the multi-channel world. I’d have thought of Virgin Media’s portfolio, Living TV is currently the biggest player.
In other multi-channel news, I stumbled across Diva TV yesterday. What a very odd channel. From the name alone, it would seem to be aimed at an entirely different demographic to mine. But I stopped and watched. Why? Well take a look at Diva’s schedule for tomorrow:
0600 Picket Fences
0700 Yoga
0730 Yoga (Half an hour’s never enough)
0800 Kid’s Healthworks
0830 The Bold and the Beautiful
0900 The Bold and the Beautiful
0930 Style By Jury
1000 Hot Property
1030 Judge Hatchett
1100 The Bold and the Beautiful
1130 The Bold and the Beautiful
1200 The Oprah Winfrey Show
1300 Rachael Ray
1400 Picket Fences
1500 Yoga TV
1530 Style By Jury
1600 The Oprah Winfrey Show
1700 Kids Healthworks
1730 Rachael Ray
1830 The Independent Traveller’s Guide
1900 Hot Property
1930 Judge Hatchett
2000 Tease
2100 The Late Show With David Letterman
2200 Heroes’ Mountain (I think this must be a TV movie)
0000 Teleshopping (what’s wrong with the word “Closedown” any longer?)
No prizes for guessing what stood out for me: there’s a channel carrying David Letterman in the UK once again. But what an odd place to find it. From the brief excerpt I saw, I haven’t been able to work out how up to date the episodes are. They’ve also got Oprah which seems like a sensible purchase since she gets some big names on her sofa. But the scheduling could do with re-jigging.
I’d put Letterman on at 11.00pm and bring forward their TV movie – there’s just too much competition at 9pm. Indeed, a late night – Sky+able repeat would be good. And I’d move Oprah back to 5pm and compete directly with whatever rubbish ITV’s running at that time, and Richard & Judy/Paul O’Grady on C4. They’ve obviously decided to avoid that clash. An interesting channel launch, although I’ve seen precisely no marketing for this channel (perhaps it’s all in magazines that I don’t read).