The Box (UK and Ireland) - Current Format

Current Format

The channel is well known for its First Play feature, where many videos often make their UK or world premiere. This new music is often shown through the 'Box Fresh' show on the channel. Most notably, The Box, were recognised for the particular force behind the huge success of the first Spice Girls hit "Wannabe", playing their first single months before its official release date and helping to launching the group to mega stardom. Before Emap took ownership within Box Television, the channel was recognised for the wide variety of music from all genres, offering up to 500 videos per week as well as for helping to introduce Rap and Hip hop music onto the UK music scene.

The slogan of The Box is "Fresh Music First" — previous mottos include "Big Hits First", "Music Television You Control" and "Smash Hits You Control".

Notably, for a brief period in late 1999 and early 2000, there was a trend of artists name checking The Box in their music videos, though the practice wasn't widespread. In most cases, this was simply an insertion of the logo at some point in the regular video, however in a few cases, the channel was actually name checked by the artists themselves. The most notable example of this is the video for the S Club 7 song "S Club Party", which also had an extended opening and closing not seen on other music channels.

As with all Box Television channels, The Box now operates from a pre-programmed playlist and does not include video selection "jukeboxes". In July 2007, 50% of Box Television was sold to Channel Four Television Corporation, before EMAP's remaining 50% in the company was sold to Bauer Media Group in January 2008.