Play UK


Play UK was a television channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom as part of the UKTV network of channels. The channel had originally been planned as a television version of BBC Radio 1 but launched without the Radio 1 tie-up as UK Play on 10 October 1998, changing its name to Play UK in November 2000. The channel was aimed at playing music in the morning and afternoon, while broadcasting comedy during primetime and evenings.
Play UK broadcast all day on the digital platforms, but on the Sky Analogue platform on the Astra 19.2°E satellite system it broadcast between 1am and 7am when UK Horizons was not broadcasting.

Music Programming

The majority of the music programmes broadcast on Play UK were produced by themselves. Play UK also used to air reruns of TOTP2, which were originally broadcast on BBC Two.
Most of the comedy programming on Play UK had already been broadcast on the BBC's channels. Play UK also produced original comedy programming and, later on, broadcast American comedy and animation.

Originally produced/American programming

Play UK closed on 30 September 2002 at 12am due to low ratings because of the closure of ITV Digital on 1 May 2002; also it could not compete with MTV. Play UK's comedy programming was then moved to UK Gold. It was later replaced with UK History exactly one month later.