HGTV (British and Irish TV channel)

History[edit]

The channel originally launched on 1 November 1997 as UK Style, broadcasting lifestyle programming from the archive of the BBC and from external producers. The channel was launched as part of the initial creation of the UKTV network, following the success of sister channel UK Gold. The channel broadcast 24 hours a day on analogue cable, while it initially shared a transponder with its sister channels on Astra satellite.


UK Style was one of the launch channels on the OnDigital service in November 1998, sharing a slot with UK Horizons.^[2] Prior to this, it was one of the launch networks on Sky Digital, allowing satellite viewers to view the network at any time.


The channel rebranded alongside all the other UKTV networks on 8 May 2001. Further on, the channel's success was noted when it was announced that a new spin-off network - UK Food was announced on 11 July 2001.^[3] The channel launched on 5 November of that year, allowing UK Style to focus more on lifestyle programming.


On 1 February 2002, UKTV announced UK Style +, a timeshift service, which launched on Sky Digital on 11 February 2002,^[4] initially airing from 8:00am-6:00pm and timesharing with UK Gold 2.^[5] A week later, UK Style + launched on Telewest with UK Horizons +1, where they timeshared with each other on the platform.^[6] and on 29 May, launched on NTL as well.^[7]


In January 2003, another new channel called UK Bright Ideas was created to showcase programming from UK Style and UK Food on the digital terrestrial network Freeview. This was later extended to all networks, allowing repeats of some programmes to air on this channel only. On 7 July, UK Style + extended broadcast hours to end at 2:00am.^[8]


On 8 March 2004, in line with the rest of the UKTV network, UK Style and UK Style + were renamed to UKTV Style and UKTV Style +1.


In January 2005, another offshoot network was announced - UKTV Style Gardens, moving all the landscape and gardening programmes over to the new channel. The channel launched on 21 February 2005 on Sky and Telewest.^[9] The channel was added to NTL in May 2005 as part of a new carriage deal between Flextech and NTL.^[10] The channel name was later shortened to UKTV Gardens in 2007.


In December 2007, a two-hour timeshift service - UKTV Style 2, was launched on Sky, using UKTV Bright Ideas' former slot. The temporary service was closed in September 2008 to make way for Watch.


on 24 March 2009, as part of the rebranding of UKTV's channels to unique names and identities, it was announced that UKTV Style would be rebranded as Home on 30 April 2009 and reposition itself to include programming based around home improvement, gardens and home lifestyle programmes.^[11] Other female lifestyle programmes were transferred to newly created channel Really, and all gardening programmes were transferred from UKTV Gardens to Home as part of the rebrand.


On 1 April 2019, it was announced that UKTV co-owner Discovery Inc. would acquire the BBC's stake in Home.^[12]


In June 2019, Discovery announced that Home would be rebranded as a local version of HGTV.^[13] This took place on 21 January 2020, the first programme to air on HGTV was Homes Under The Hammer at 7 am.