More4 is a digital television channel, produced by United Kingdom broadcaster Channel 4 that launched on 10 October 2005. It is carried on Freeview (UK) on satellite broadcasters Freesat and Sky (UK & Ireland) UK IPTV broadcaster TalkTalk TV and on UK cable network Virgin Media and in the Republic of Ireland cable networks including UPC Ireland

Content

More4 centres around lifestyle, documentary, and arts programming, and competes with the BBCs similar offering, BBC Four More4 airs from 9:00 am until about 3:00 am. The channels annual budget is £33 million, of which £20 million is earmarked for original programming Peter Dale (More4 chief) Channel 4s current head of documentary events and the new channels chief said it would be "television that restarts the conversation" Image:More4 share of viewing.png To encourage new viewers to try the new service, Channel 4 moved its first-run showing of [[The West Wing (television)|The West Wing]] showing season 6 and 7 back to back, from its sister digital station E4 (channel) to More4 and [[Without a Trace]]from Channel 4 The channel also carries other American imports such as [[The Daily Show]] [[Curb Your Enthusiasm]] and repeats of Channel 4 programmes including game show [[Deal or No Deal (UK game show)|Deal or No Deal]] reality TV show [[Brat Camp]] investigative series [[Dispatches (TV series)|Dispatches]] and the controversial [[Body shock]] Daytime content includes classic films and reruns of shows such as [[Hill Street Blues]]and [[ER (TV series)|ER]]. The station also carries Morgan Spurlock s reality TV show [[30 Days (TV series)|30 Days]]and American dramas such as [[The Closer]] The channel features a nightly discussion programme Starkeys Last Word hosted by David Starkey during the Autumn line-up. This show was originally called The Last Wordand hosted alternately by Stanley Johnson (writer) Mark Dolan Hardeep Singh Kohli and David Mitchell (actor) and occasional special guest hosts such as Morgan Spurlock On midweek days, it shows hour long and feature length documentaries including Channel 4s [[Cutting Edge (Channel 4 TV series)|Cutting Edge]]films. On its first night, the channel led with the satirical docudrama A Very Social Secretaryabout the affair between David Blunkett the former British Home Secretary and Kimberly Quinn In April 2006, More4 broadcast a live hypnosurgery hernia operation. From 1 October 2007, More4 broadcast a season of programmes celebrating the 25th anniversary of its parent, Channel 4.

Channel launch

In September 2005 Channel 4 began running teaser trailers for the new station (although the name was neither mentioned nor seen in the adverts). Showing neon lettering, the teasers hinted at "adult entertainment". Some people may have been confused by the deliberate double-meaning of these trailers and mistakenly presumed the new channel would be of a pornography nature. The Daily Mail refused to accept launch advertising for the channel on these grounds. Advertisements starting at the end of September made it much clearer that the "adult entertainment" being offered was the intelligent and insightful programming. Viewing figures for the launch date gave More4 an average figure of 269,000 viewers compared to E4 (channel) s 296,000.

Availability

Space was reserved on Freeview (UK) multiplex C for the channel. However, despite Channel 4 saying that the channel would appear on multiplex C, the channel has appeared on multiplex 2. A place holder appeared on the Freeview (UK) Electronic program guide at number 13 on 13 September and after a time, ran a looping teaser trailer. More4+1 became available on the Digital terrestrial television platform on 14 December 2005. It was removed on 18 May 2006, to make way for live coverage of Big Brother UK series 7 and the Freeview (UK) launch of Film4 later in the year. While More4 is available on most cable television platforms, More4+1 was available on Virgin Media until 20 August 2007 when it was replaced by Channel4+1 across the digital television network. Despite initial advertising and official internet communication that it would be free-to-air on satellite television More4 was encrypted under Skys pay TV scheme until May 6, 2008 when it dropped its NDS encryption and went free-to-air. It joined the BBC and ITVs new satellite platform, Freesat on the same day. More4 is available to viewers in the Republic of Ireland via Sky, Freesat and UPC Ireland s digital service. This led to further speculation that Channel 4 would eventually launch on Sky in the Republic of Ireland, which it did in December 2006. C4 has already made its other flagship channels: E4 (channel) E4+1, Film4 and Film4+1 available in Ireland via Sky, UPC Ireland digital TV providers. Channel 4 itself is available on almost all Irish cable and MMDS systems (in some cases Channel 4 is replaced with S4C).

See also

* Channel 4 * E4 (channel) * Film4 * List of British television channels

References

* http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4298845.stm BBC report on More4] * http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds20477.html Digital Spy report] * http://www.cult.tv/index.php?cm_id710&cm_typearticle CultTV report on More4]

External links

* * *http://www.channel4sales.com/news/news-article.aspx?year2005&id249 Press release announcing the new channel] at Channel 4#Channel4.com * *http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271%7C97219%7C1%7C,00.html The Daily Show with Jon Stewart strikes syndication deal with Channel 4] *http://www.onastra.com/how-to-receive-astra/index.php Guide to receiving Astra satellites] *http://www.onastra.com/channel-guide/index.php Guide to channels broadcasting on Astra satellites]
Category:Channel 4 television channels Category:Television channels and stations established in 2005 nl:More4