E4 (TV Channel) - History

History

On 16 December 2004, Channel 4 announced that the subscription channel would return to digital terrestrial television. From its launch until the closure of ITV Digital it was available as a bonus subscription channel. It became part of the Top Up TV subscription scheme until 27 May 2005, when the channel became available on Freeview, with the potential to increase advertising revenue by attracting a larger audience.

E4 was also available as part of the basic Sky satellite subscription channel package, due to a long term contract with BSkyB it only became free-to-air in 2008. This change happened on 6 May 2008 and the channel joined Freesat along with More4.

In May 2005, E4 introduced "First Look", showing episodes of popular programmes such as Come Dine with Me, Hollyoaks and drama series such as Lost and Invasion in advance of transmission on Channel 4.

In October 2005, More4 was launched to complement Channel 4's digital channels. ER and The West Wing subsequently moved from E4 to More4.

E4 launched a Republic of Ireland service in June 2002 which has become the second most popular non-terrestrial channel in Ireland with 1.1% of the audience; Sky1 is the most popular.

Since 2006, E4 has sponsored the E4 UdderBELLY venue (part of Underbelly) at the Edinburgh Fringe and Brighton Festival. The venue took the form of a giant upside cow in the purple colour of E4's logo.

In July 2007, it was announced Channel 4 would be launching E4 Radio, the first of a network of channels to be broadcast on DAB radio. The station was planned for launch in July 2008 and aimed at a similar demographic to its sister television channel, however this launch date was later delayed. In October 2008 Channel 4 announced it was abandoning its plans for digital radio, and thus scrapping the E4 Radio proposal.

On 14 December 2009, a high-definition simulcast of E4 launched on Sky+ HD channel 215, it was later added to Virgin Media on 1 April 2010. Unlike the other standard definition channels from Channel 4, which are free to air, E4 HD is only available with a subscription to either Sky's HD pack or Virgin Media's TV XL pack. Similar to this, the high-definition simulcast of its sister channel, Film4, is only available to Virgin Media's TV L and XL HD customers. E4 acquired the rights to several new US comedies throughout 2011 and 2012, a few of which were New Girl, Suburgatory, 2 Broke Girls, The New Normal & The Mindy Project.