[WillPS]

The 'Free Weekend Pass'. They had done a few of them in the years preceding. though considering the rebrand to Pick TV was to lessen the Sky 'premium' association, I can see why they would have kept Sky 3 for an extra months for one last outing of the pass.
presentationarchive.com 

Yes, that would scan if Sky 3 had any semblance of 'premium' about it, which it didn't... arguably it got better content in the years after the rebrand.

[Rex]

Channel One died a month or so before Sky 3. Sky 3 actually had a set of branding which lasted I think a month before being replaced by PickTV which had a very similar ident. I presume they would have changed it at the same time but they did one of those 'Sky preview on Sky 3 weekends' (forget how they branded it now) in mid-Feb as part of their high profile launch of Sky Atlantic. Why they felt they couldn't do that on a channel not called 'Sky something' I don't know.

Channel One had been coasting since it lost the Virgin brand, it had gone back to being mostly content aggregated from across the Living TV Group (as it's forerunner Ftn mostly but not exclusively did). Commissions like 'Restaurant in our Living Room' were moved to Living. Challenge continued with minor tweaks to its branding and Freeview carriage largely as it had been for a few months before (i.e. not a lot going on) - it wasn't until the spring when new content began arriving, starting with TNA wrestling.

I can't think of what Channel One exclusive content made it over to Pick TV?

I doubt anything exclusive to Channel One made it to Pick, but some of Flextech's archive was given slots on the channel a year after it launched. 

Pick retained the one year to 18 month gap between a programme's first broadcast on Sky branded channels and their eventual showing on Pick, a practice kept from Sky3. The sci-fi afternoon slot that Virgin 1 heavily advertised was carried over to Pick. Really in the end it was the core elements of those old services that were consolidated into Sky's FTA channel.

[Kunst]

Sky Digiboxes do not play well with channels going off the air. Explains why that caption was only seen for a millisecond

Mostly, AFAIK, Sky channels aren't allowed to have a static screen for a long time by the Sky rules themselves, which explains why Sky channels mostly go blank instead of showing a static screen or something resembling it at off times.

Other platforms have different rules

[Josh]

Yes. BBC Three put programming in the graveyard slot to circumvent this rule and be able to show a barker loop the rest of the time as technically they were still showing programming: www.youtube.com 

[WillPS]

Yes. BBC Three put programming in the graveyard slot to circumvent this rule and be able to show a barker loop the rest of the time as technically they were still showing programming: www.youtube.com 

Amazing they went to the effort of recording programme-specific continuity for that.

[Stooky Bill]

I didn't even know L!ve TV even had any local opt outs!

Originally it was meant to be a local channel called 'London Live' but then after they bought Wire TV they dropped the London and became a national station. 

The intention was for it to be a network of local stations, the only ones that opened were Liverpool and Edinburgh, and some opt outs in Westminster. 


Another cable channel Channel One had a similar idea, it was run by Associated Newspapers from the old Channel 4 building in Charlotte Street but closed in 1998:

youtu.be 

IIRC it had a Liverpool version that outlived the London one

[lookoutwales]

The intention was for it to be a network of local stations, the only ones that opened were Liverpool and Edinburgh, and some opt outs in Westminster. 

And Manchester and Birmingham, as mentioned previously (more footage of both lurking around on YT)

Liverpool’s Channel One was based within the Echo offices - it certainly outlasted the London version but AFAIK, went under for the same reasons.

Granada’s Andy Bonner has uploaded some footage from his time there (there’s quite a few of their low-budget Billy and Wally shows online, dare you look)

[NB Guy]

www.youtube.com  G4 TV In the US On its original era of G4 TV The last program that they aired was the first episode of X Play after that they some clip of Playing Pong And after it went off the air

www.youtube.com  While for the short lived relaunch of G4 TV the last program was the first episode of X Play from the relaunch after that some clips where aired and then after that a zoomed-out photo of former Attack of the Show host Gina Darling's forehead, with a still game of Pong etched onto it and then we can hear Kassem G's deadpan voice saying "I'm at Comic-Con!," referencing the first time the network was stopped transmitting. And then a screen reading "THANK YOU FOR WATCHING" was set to appear before they went off the air however the last few seconds was never aired on cable tv providers as they cut the signal out from the channels feed

[LTSC1980]

Disney had close channels from around the world after Disney/Fox merger to make way for Disney+

youtu.be 

youtu.be 

This video can only be viewed on YouTube.

youtu.be 

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