SmileTV
 | |
| Ownership | |
|---|---|
| Owner | Cellcast Group[1] |
| History | |
| Launched | 27 April 2006 |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| Freeview | Channel 673 (22:00–05:00) (3) |
SmileTV is a range of British television channels owned by the Cellcast Group that broadcast various premium-rate telephone chat-line services.
SmileTV
The original SmileTV channel was launched on digital terrestrial television (Freeview) channel 37 on 29 April 2006. It was carried on multiplex C, and timeshared with UKTV History - broadcasting from 1:00am to 5:00am. From its launch, the network broadcast a premium phone-in quiz game service named Quizworld. An audio version of Quizworld was also broadcast on Top Up TV Active intermittently outside of SmileTV's broadcast hours. The audio was accompanied by an on-screen MHEG graphic of the quiz. A MHEG graphic was used during the daytime and evening as Top Up TV had no space on the platform for an additional video stream.
After Quizworld ended in July 2006, the slot became home to a premium-rate telephone chat-line service named Party People, while the final hour of broadcasting was home to a short-film entertainment program named Shortcutters, later replaced with Teleshopping. In October, the slots were slightly changed, with Party People airing from 1:00am–3:00am, while a text-based quiz service named Win Win TV took over the 3:00am–5:00am slot, later replaced with Cellcast's own Sumo TV in March 2007 following the 2007 British premium-rate phone-in scandal.
In April 2007, SmileTV launched on Sky, although it differed from the Freeview counterpart. On 28 September 2007, the channel's Freeview airtime was moved to 3:00am–7:00am, to make way for the launch of Dave which had moved into the daytime space of the slot it occupied. By then, the entirety of the channel's output was a premium rate telephone chat-line service by the name of Party Girls.
On 20 August 2009, SmileTV ceased broadcasting and was replaced with SmileTV3, which still continues to broadcast to this day.
SmileTV2
SmileTV2 was the sister channel to SmileTV, and launched on Freeview channel 46 on 8 September 2008. The channel broadcast from 10:00pm to 5:00am, and was broadcast as a seven-month temporary slotted channel, running on a limited amount of capacity. Therefore, the channel was not available in Wales, due to S4C securing the slot for its text services.
The channel broadcast Party Girls during the evening hours, while the daytime hours were home to a premium rate telephone chat-line health service named Life Coach TV. After a few months, Life Coach TV was replaced with Psychic TV, and also began airing two daytime chat shows - The Chat and Smile & Date.
In February 2009, SmileTV2 dropped all mentioned programming in favour of Bingo on the Box: Live, before the channel ceased broadcast on 15 March 2009, after the expiry of its slot. In May, SmileTV2 relaunched in a different slot that timeshared with Ideal World, and reduced its broadcast hours to 12:00am–5:00am, entirely broadcasting Babestation.
The channel closed on 13 May 2020, following changes made to the Channel 4 channels 4Music & 4seven, as well as Together TV, which all temporarily broadcast from 10pm to 7am until June 2 on Freeview.
SmileTV3
After the original SmileTV closed in August 2009, a channel called SmileTV3 launched. Broadcasting from 12:00pm to 8:00am, the channel broadcasts Babestation, as with SmileTV2, and soon reduced its broadcast hours to 00:00am to 05:00am, before extending to its current 10:00pm to 5:00am slot in 2011.
In 2012, the channel broadcast the X-rated pay-per-view service Babestation X between 22:00 and 00:00 and swapped to showing the Babestation "Get Lucky TV" sky channel from 00:00 to 05:00.[2]
Currently, the channel broadcasts BabeStation.
References
- ^ Leiva, María Trinidad García (2008). Políticas públicas y televisión digital: el caso de la TDT en España y el Reino Unido (in Spanish). Editorial CSIC - CSIC Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-84-00-08652-7.
- ^ "Freeview 'porn' sparks Ofcom action". The Guardian. 7 March 2012. Retrieved 25 November 2022.