[Rex]

Dave was one of the few pay TV channels that really helped Freeview to come on its own. The name was genius and the entire selling point of the channel worked well, and not to mention, it was a far better offering than what UKTV previously had with Bright Ideas. It also slowly but surely was a sign of pay TV companies realising that Freeview was not something to be taken for granted and with a larger audience further down the line, so too will the content change to meet higher expectations.

The most important legacy it's had is that it changed UKTV's approach to branding its channels and its success made them realise that a strong channel identity actively benefits the channel and its sister services in the long term.

On a personal level, it's one of the few channels (alongside BBC Three, the News Channel and a few of the Sky channels) that I actively keep an eye on when checking the channels on Freeview/Now TV, it's consistently had a healthy schedule of programmes from its launch in 2007 all the way to today.

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You could probably argue that Dave was the first major Freeview channel to be big that wasn’t a BBC, ITV or Channel 4 spin off. And kudos to UKTV for developing original content beyond its original remit, or not being another outlet solely dependent on BBC repeats.

Looking back it has actually stood the test of time as far as Freeview channels are concerned, not many services aside from the main PSBs will have been as consistent and as popular as Dave has been. In the time since Dave launched I'd argue Quest and Drama have come close to it