TV Travel Shop
| Ownership | |
|---|---|
| Owner | TV Travel Shop |
| History | |
| Launched | April 1998 |
| Closed | 16 April 2004 |
| Replaced by | Top Up TV encrypted channels |
| Availability At time of closure | |
| Terrestrial | |
| Freeview | Channel 17 (1) |
TV Travel Shop was a British television channel that sold holidays.
It launched in 1998, primarily on satellite and cable. In 2000, the channel launched on ONdigital, using capacity from ONrequest 2 (later ITV Select 2), and broadcast 6am-12pm weekdays, and 6am-10am weekends, free to air on channel 44. Its hours were extended in January 2002 to be broadcast from 6am-6pm daily. However, after the fall of ITV Digital, TV Travel Shop made a deal with multiplex operator, SDN, to carry the channel 24 hours a day using the newly freed up capacity [1]. It moved to channel 17 at the launch of Freeview.
However, by December 2003, Top Up TV were looking to buy slots for their new subscription platform, and acquired the slot and LCN occupied by TV Travel Shop. The channel went off air on 16 April 2004, and its stream was replaced in April 2004 by a Top Up TV subscription stream.
TV Travel Shop 2
From 2001, TV Travel Shop 2 was introduced broadcasting on cable and satellite, offering late bargains, new places and repeats of shows from TV Travel Shop. This was positioned next to TV Travel Shop on Sky Digital and NTL.
By late 2004, the channels were suffering from lack of custom and were shut down.
Both closed, and were replaced by auction channels iBuy and iBuy2 on Sky Digital.