This is a timeline of the British company ITV Digital Channels and its predecessors Granada Sky Broadcasting and Carlton Communications, and digital channels of other ITV-related companies. The timeline does not include events related to ITV network's flagship channel (ITV1 / STV / UTV).
1990s
1996
2 September – Carlton Food Network launches. It broadcasts on weekday afternoons on cable.
14 February – Entertainment channel Carlton Select is launched. It broadcasts during the evening, sharing space with Carlton Food Network and is also only broadcast on cable. It replaces SelecTV which Carlton acquired from Pearson Television. It had been broadcasting on cable since June 1995.
1 May – Granada Good Life is renamed Granada Breeze and the change sees the abolition of the four segments.
31 May – Sky Scottish stops broadcasting because the channel had failed to meet its financial targets.[1]
15 November – The public launch of digital terrestrial TV in the UK takes place with the launch of ONdigital and as part of the 19-channel line-up, Carlton creates three new channels for the platform, Carlton Cinema, Carlton Kids and Carlton World and Granada, in conjunction with Littlewoods, opens Shop!.
7 December – ITV2 is launched but only in England and Wales. It operates as a single service with no regional content. It is a mixed genre channel and as well as being available on ONdigital, it is also carried on cable.
1999
4 January – GMTV2 launches during the breakfast downtime of ITV2.[2]
September – ONsport launches. It replaces Champions on 28 and Champions on 99 which had reflected the channel numbers these were broadcast on. These channels were rebranded respectively as ONsport 1 and ONsport 2 after ONdigital had purchased rights to the ATP Masters Series tennis. Whilst ONsport 1 broadcasts 24 hours a day, ONsport 2 timeshares with Carlton Cinema and is only on air to provide coverage of an alternate Champions League match.
11 July – Carlton and Granada relaunch OnDigital as ITV Digital in an attempt to better compete with Sky.[7]
27 July – S2 closes and consequently ITV2 starts broadcasting in Scotland.
11 August – The ITV Sport Channel launches. It replaces ONsport and is a premium service rather than an add-on for ITV Digital customers. It fails to get carriage on Sky and Telewest but is available on NTL.
1 November – ITV3 launches, replacing Plus which closes a few hours prior to ITV3's launch. Earlier that day, ITV had bought out BSkyB's stake in Granada Sky Broadcasting.
8 November – ITV Digital Channels Ltd is formally launched following the closure of Granada Sky Broadcasting.
2005
1 November – ITV4 launches but only as a part-time channel. Consequently, ITV2 relaunches as an entertainment channel following the transfer of sports coverage from ITV2 to the new channel.
23 December – ITV News Channel stops broadcasting at 6pm. Poor ratings in comparison to BBC News 24 and Sky News and ITV's desire to reuse the channel's allocation on Freeview were cited as the reasons.[11]
2006
11 March – The CITV Channel launches on Freeview, Home Choice and Telewest. It starts broadcasting on Sky on 8 May and on NTL on 6 June.
13 March – ITV announces that ITV Play will permanently close down following recent concerns over participation television.[12] On 16 March, its slot on Freeview is taken by the recently launched ITV2+1.
29 July – Merit launches as an evening service showing gardening and cookery programmes[21] but less than a month after its launch, ITV sells the channel to Sky Group.[22]
1 September – The CITV channel closes as part of ITV's plans to transition its children's output to a predominantly online model. A morning block of children's programming is introduced on ITV2, using the "CITV" brand, serving primarily to promote the online ITVX offering. The LittleBe strand within ITVBe continues.[23][24]
2024
No events.
2025
9 June – ITVBe is replaced by ITV Quiz. Many of its programmes, which had mostly been reality shows, moved back to ITV2 as a result.[25][26]
