ITV Choice logo (2013-present)
ITV Choice was a satellite and cable television channel owned and operated by ITV plc. It was available in the Middle East, Africa, Cyprus, Malta, and across Asia, including Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia. The channel was launched in 1997 by Granada Media under the title Granada UKTV. It primarily carried ITV and other UK programming, produced by ITV Studios and other independent production companies. Key programmes included Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Dancing on Ice, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, The Jonathan Ross Show, Doc Martin and others.
The service was expanded and relaunched as Granada TV during 2008, when ITV announced plans to offer the channel to cable and satellite operators in Asia.
ITV Choice broadcast on the following platforms: in Hong Kong on now TV channel 517, in Indonesia on Skynindo channel 27 and TelkomVision channel 503, in Malaysia on Astro channel 735, in Malta on GO (Malta) channel 305 and Melita Cable channel 309, in the Middle East on Star TV's Star Select service, as well as on Orbit Showtime Network (OSN) channel 47 and Arab Digital Distribution in the Middle East, in Singapore on StarHub channel 523 and Mio TV channel 23, in Taiwan on Chunghwa Telecom channel 82 and in Thailand through Cable Thai Holding to thousands of homes. It was also available on satellite ABS 1 across Asia and Middle East. The channel broadcasted on Star TV's Star Select service and Arab Digital Distribution in the Middle East, on Melita Cable and GO in Malta, and later on a range of cable platforms across Asia.
On 15th July 2009, the channel became available in Singapore on the mio TV IPTV service, and became available on StarHub's cable TV service on 1st December 2009.
In addition, on 21st December 2009, a deal was reached with Astro All Asia Networks in Malaysia, allowing Astro to add its channel to its basic subscription pack on channel 735.
ITV Granada launched in Hong Kong on 7th September 2010 on PCCW's Now TV platform, channel 517. On 1st November 2010, Granada TV was re-branded as ITV Granada. On 6th December 2010, ITV Granada launched its service in Taiwan on Chunghwa Telecom's MOD (or TV over IP) platform, channel 82. It launched in India on 5th January 2012 by the leading DTH Broadcaster Airtel digital TV.
The channel was rebranded as ITV Choice on 25th March 2013, and ceased to be carried on SingTel's mio TV IPTV service in Singapore.
Coronation Street was broadcast at 9.00am GMT and was approximately one year behind the UK however from 18th May 2015, transmission changed to 7.15pm. The programme was approximately one year behind the UK but as of the same date it caught up, albeit two days behind the current UK schedule. The last "old" episode shown on ITV Choice was Episode 8390 (19th May 2014) and to bridge the gap a one-hour special with the intervening events was shown on 15th May.
On 20th August 2019, the channel suddenly ceased broadcasting in many markets across the Middle East, Malta and Asia, while transmission in South Africa was unaffected. The channel ceased broadcasting in Africa on 4th June of the following year.
External links[]
- ITV Choice at Wikipedia.