BBC Prime - Availability

Availability

The channel was available in many areas through satellite and cable television

• In the Netherlands and Belgium, the channel was available on cable, alongside BBC One, BBC Two and BBC World News.
• It was available on digital terrestrial television (DTT) in the Netherlands and Malta.
• In Turkey, it was available on Türksat Cable TV and Digiturk.
• In Italy, it was available on SKY Italia.
• The South Africa service was launched in 1999 and contained some different programmes to that broadcast in Europe, due to some programmes already being licensed to other channels.
• The Asia service was launched on the 1 December 2004 and had a different schedule to that of the Europe service to reflect the different time zones, and cultural practices. It was available in Hong Kong (on Now TV's Channel 529), Thailand (on TrueVisions' (Channel 35), Singapore (on StarHub TV's Channel 76) and South Korea (on Skylife's Channel 334).

In order to cater to a wider audience, who do not have English their first language, BBC Prime carried subtitles in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Czech, Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, Italian, Hebrew and Serbian. The Asian service also had subtitles in Chinese, Thai, and Korean.

A similar channel, called BBC Japan, launched in Japan on 1 December 2004, but ceased broadcasting on 30 April 2006 owing to problems with its local distributor.