The Box (British and Irish TV channel)

The Box was brought to the United Kingdom by Vincent Monsey and his partner Liz Laskowski, who discovered the original American music video channel in Miami in 1991, when it was then known as The Jukebox Network. The UK company, Video Jukebox Network International Limited, was formed in 1991 and The Box was launched the following year in April 1992. The Box was carried by four operators UA, Telewest in London and Bristol, Nynex in the south of England, and Videotron, which is also based in London.

Over the next few years, The Box was rolled out on a regional basis across all of the United Kingdom's cable system available and, eventually, onto Sky Digital in 1998. The Box was also broadcast on the Astra Satellite between 2 am and 6 am during the downtime of Granada Plus and Men & Motors. From 1999, all the regional versions of The Box were shut down and replaced with a single UK version.

Ticketmaster Inc. briefly owned 50% of the company (Box Television Ltd) before becoming a public company on the FTSE. EMAP took ownership of these shares in 1997, and purchased the shareholding held by the US company VJN Inc, which had then become TCI Music and then Liberty Digital. The US version of the channel was sold to MTVN in 2000, with EMAP retaining ownership.

In July 2007, Channel Four Television Corporation acquired 50% of Box Television, before EMAP's remaining 50% in the company was sold to Bauer Media Group in January 2008. In 2019, Channel 4 took full ownership of the company, now known as The Box Plus Network.[1]

On 2 April 2013, all Box Television channels went free-to-air on satellite, apart from 4Music which went free-to-view.[2] As a result, the channels were removed from the Sky EPG in Ireland.[3] The Box was added to the Freesat EPG on 15 April 2013, alongside three other Box Television channels. The Box and its sister channels (except 4Music) returned to Freesat on 8 December 2021 alongside C4 HD.[4]

Each year on 1 November, the channel temporary rebrands as "BoXmas", playing Christmas hits. It also plays regular hits during post-Christmas days.

On the evening of Saturday 25 September 2021, transmission of channels operated by Channel 4 was impacted by the activation of a fire suppressant system at the premises of Red Bee Media.[5] This resulted in The Box being simulcast on Freeview in the place of 4Music, and the channel being broadcast in the place of 4Music, Kerrang! TV and Magic on satellite and cable.

On 23 August 2022, the On-Screen Graphics of The Box were revised. The new graphics feature a larger logo, modified font and different animations when showing Artist/Song titles and transitions.