Sky Witness

Living

Ownership
Owner	Virgin Media Television

Living is a television channel owned by Virgin Media Television broadcasting in the UK, Malta and the Republic of Ireland. Originally launched as UK Living in 1993, the channel changed its name to Living in 1997, to LivingTV in 2001 and back to LIVING in 2007. The channel's programming is aimed mainly at women and young adults. With new shows such as CSI, Close to Home and Boston Legal, the channel is now broadening its audience reach to a wider range of demographics including men aged 18–45.

The most watched shows on Living are Ghost Whisperer, Criminal Minds, America's Next Top Model, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Most Haunted Live.

The channel also airs Yvette Fielding's Most Haunted, in which Fielding and medium David Wells investigate supposedly haunted locations in the UK. The show has brought some of the channel's biggest ratings to date.

Branding

The channel is known to have tweaked its on-air name several times, though to date all iterations of the channel branding have included the word 'Living' in some form.

The channel launched on air in 1993 as UK Living. This came about as it was established by the firm then known as Flextech (now Virgin Media Television), who also owned a half-share in the established entertainment channel UK Gold.

In 1997, when the BBC and Flextech launched UK Style, UK Horizons and UK Arena to form the UKTV network, it was decided that UK Living would not be part of this and would remain a standalone, separate channel. As such, it had to remove the 'UK' branding to avoid being confused with the UKTV services; thus UK Living became Living.

Living subsequently launched a website at livingtv.co.uk, and to tie in with the website's branding, the decision was made to rename the channel in 2001 to LivingTV. This was initially represented on screen by the addition of the letters 'TV' to the established logo. In a 2004 branding relaunch, the way the name was displayed on screen changed to LIVINGtv.

In a further revamp of the channel's presentation in 2007, the decision was taken to revert the channel name from LIVINGtv back to LIVING (still officially spelt all in capitals, though some media give the name in normal case).

Channel profile

In 2001, Living helped to launch a whole new genre of paranormal programming with such shows as Crossing Over with John Edward, 6ixth Sense with Colin Fry, Scream Team, Jane Goldman Investigates, Dead Famous, I'm Famous and Frightened! and Most Haunted, which continues to be a ratings winner.

Living has also launched a number of successful US television shows in the UK market. Past successes include Charmed, Will & Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Miss Match, Joan of Arcadia, CSI, and Just Shoot Me!. At present the channel currently has first run UK rights to Boston Legal, Criminal Minds, Grey's Anatomy, Ghost Whisperer, The L Word, Men In Trees and the Australian comedy Kath and Kim. In 2008 the channel will also be debuting the first seasons of Army Wives, Lipstick Jungle, and Viva Laughlin.

Brian Dowling was put forward as one of the public figures to represent Living - by presenting programming including Celebrity Extra, Trolley Dollies, and a spin-off to I'm Famous and Frightened!. However in recent years, Brian has been mostly absent from the channel apart from the occasional Celebrity Extra presenting duties. Instead fellow Big Brother contestant Jade Goody became Living's newest public face, with three different shows devoted to her life, Jades Salon, Just Jade and Jade's P.A but in January 2007 she was dropped due to the racist row on Celebrity Big Brother. In 2009 when Jade discovered that she had terminal cancer LIVINGtv bought the exclusive rights to film a documentary through her final days.

To continue the list of Reality TV stars hosting programmes, Jodie Marsh announced that she would be presenting a new programme called Get A Life starting on 1 March 2007. However, Living announced that the show was to be cancelled and discussions got under-way as to whether the remaining four episodes would be aired.

Living announced in February 2007 that Abigail Clancy, the runner up Britain's Next Top Model (cycle 2) has signed a deal with the channel to make a new reality show with Janice Dickinson as her mentor, on trying to crack America.

Many of Living's original programming are available on demand through Virgin Media and will soon be available on BT Vision. Living and it's sister channels are run by ex - ITV Controller of Entertainment Claudia Rosencrantz.

Living in Ireland

Living is also available in the Republic of Ireland via Sky Digital, UPC Ireland cable, and UPC Digital but is also available in many other European countries via Satellite. The Irish version of Living hosts local advertising and has increasingly been trying to appeal more to the Irish market, launching a huge billboard ad campaign throughout the country. Irish television channel TV3 looks over the Irish advertising for Living.

Broadcasting

Living is broadcast on 11.739 GHz, vertically polarised at 28.2°E. It is encrypted using Videoguard.

Programming

Main article: List of programmes broadcast by Living

Daytime

Living's daytime programming consists currently of American chat shows and a number of old sitcoms and dramas from the archive. The schedule begins at around 7:00 when the teleshopping finishes. The Maury Povich Show is shown a number of times throughout the day along with The Jerry Springer Show, which has been a staple in the daytime strategy of Living for years.

Notable archive programmes which are shown in the afternoon include Bewitched (1964-1972), Charmed (1998-2006), Dharma & Greg (1997-2002), I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970), and City Hospital (2002-2007). Living has also been known to show other vintage American shows such as Melrose Place, The Golden Girls and The X-Files.

Since its acquisition of the Next Top Model franchise, Living has shown previous cycles of versions from across the English-speaking world every weekday. This includes Australia's Next Top Model, America's Next Top Model, Canada's Next Top Model and Britain's Next Top Model.

Recently Living has shown newer programmes in its daytime schedule. This includes Ghost Whisperer from CBS, Close To Home from CBS and Will & Grace from NBC. There are also a number of lifestyle shows such as RSPCA Animal Rescue from Seven Network, Ready Steady Cook and Can't Cook, Won't Cook from the BBC, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition from ABC and original production Trolley Dollies.

reLIVINGtv

ReLivingTV is a weekend afternoon block, launched in 2006 on Living originally for a temporary basis. It is a programming block on Sundays, where viewers are able to relive every episode of a certain show and season. It began broadcasting in June for a morning session for viewers after the final season of Charmed ended earlier in the week. Living decided to repeat every episode of the eighth and final series. Since then reLivingtv has done the same with the likes of Jade's Salon, Just Jade, Grey's Anatomy, Boston Legal and The WB's Summerland. Although for most shows it continues on for a numerous amount of weeks until they are finished broadcasting that specific show or season, they have also started broadcasting films to break their gaps.

reLIVINGtv, is on most Sundays starting at around 3:00 pm and has no specific ending time.

Tiny Living

Tiny Living was the name of the children's programming block on Living which broadcast in the morning between 7:00 and 10:00. It began broadcasting on October 27, 1997 and ceased after the rebranding of Living in 2006. Most of the programming originated from sister station TCC (The Children's Channel) which was also owned by the Flextech Network. Shows were aimed at under seven's and included the likes of Barney and Friends, Hi-5, Rosie and Jim and Wizadora.

Living on Demand

Living along with the BBC, Channel 4, HBO and Bravo has an on demand service which is available on cable via Virgin Media. It offers access to a number of shows which viewers may of missed first time around. It also allows a whole series catch-up of particular original programming such as Most Haunted, Rehab and Dirty Dancing: The Time Of Your Life. The shows are available for free.

Certain programmes from the channel are also accessible to Freeview viewers who use Top Up TV Anytime.

On demand content from Living was added to BT Vision's library on 15 January 2009. 38 hours of programming from six of the channel's shows; Extreme: Skinny Celebrities, Dirty Dancing, Living with the Cheeky Girls, Ibiza 2008 and Most Haunted were available from launch. Subscribers to BT Vision taking the TV and Value Packs will be able to access the content with no additional cost; others will be able to view it on a pay per view basis with prices starting at 77p.

Living's on-demand offering was revamped during Autumn 2009 as Living Player on Virgin Media. Living Player offers dedicated seven-day catch-up on shows such as Ghost Whisperer and Grey's Anatomy, as well as hours of archive content previously shown on the channel. Living Player will be made available on PCs, the player will also offer HD programming for free to all customers on the Virgin Media's XL TV package. Original commissions will be made available longer term.

Living HD

On 12 June 2009, Virgin Media managing director Johnny Webb revealed that a high-definition version of Living would be rolled out during 2009 as part of a cross-platform strategy to boost the channel's brand and said that taking Living into HD was "an absolute priority", to kickstart a HD roll-out of all of the Virgin Media Television channels.

The channel shows programming such as Criminal Minds, CSI, Ghost Whisperer and Private Practice in HD and is "a significant step forward in Virgin Media Television's cross-platform entertainment strategy".

On 13 August 2009, Virgin Media added a placeholder channel for Living HD on Virgin Media channel 110, however it only showed a static 'coming soon' slate. A standard-definition preview was added on 20 August 2009. Negotiations continue for carriage on Sky Digital.

The channel launched on 6 October 2009 exclusively on Virgin Media.

Liv

On 29 September 2009, Living announced that it will launch the UK's first online-only TV channel on 23 October 2009. Liv will deliver free, exclusively commissioned and acquired short-form content every day under four themes: Celebrities, Style, Bite Me (offering previews and extensions of Living shows such as Four Weddings and Dating in the Dark) and Popular (a playlist of the most watched videos). The channel will be available through Living's website and via magazine publisher IPC, who will host the channel on female-targeting magazine websites linked to titles such as Look and Marie Claire. It will also be accessible through its own YouTube channel and a Facebook application.

The channel will launch with twice-daily celebrity news show Liv For Gossip, commissioned from Rockabox, which will benefit from a partnership with Big Pictures that gives Liv an exclusive 12-hour window on video footage from across the world. Liv will also feature a style section, which will include makeover show, Dress Famous Liv Famous, fronted by former Britain's Next Top Model finalist Jade McSorley, and beauty content. Other programmes are currently in development.

See also

• List of British television channels

External links

• Living at virginmedia.com
• Digital Spy - Cancellations
• Living presentation at TV Room