Trouble (TV channel)

Trouble was a subscription television channel operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland that was owned and operated by Virgin Media Television.

Trouble
Trouble's final logo, used from 2005 to 2009
Programming
Picture format16:9, 576i (SDTV)
Timeshift serviceTrouble +1
Ownership
OwnerVirgin Media Television
(Virgin Media)
History
Launched3 February 1997
Closed1 April 2009
Replaced byLiving +2
Living2 +1
Links
Websitewww.trouble.co.uk

Trouble had a key demographic of young adults and teenagers, aged between 15 and 24. The channel aired primarily American and Australian imports, with only a small margin of programmes being British.

History

In 1992, now-defunct television channel The Children's Channel restructured its late-afternoon programming to focus on a teenage audience, by launching a block called "TCC". TCC ran initially from 5:00pm-7:00pm but beginning on 1 September 1993 to coincide with the launch of The Family Channel and Sky Multichannels, the channel's space was changed to end at 5:00pm, including the TCC block, which now started at 3:00pm.

Beginning on 3 February 1997, the TCC block was spun-off by Flextech into its own channel - Trouble, running from 12:00pm-8:00pm, timesharing with Bravo, which had removed its daytime broadcast hours in order to focus more on an adult male audience. On 3 April 1998, Flextech closed down The Children's Channel without prior warning, with the company citifying that they wanted to focus more on the teenage market. With this, Trouble expanded its broadcast hours and now started at 7.00am, although it remained timesharing with Bravo[1] while TCC's former slot became home to TV Travel Shop.

Trouble's programming consisted more of popular sitcoms, rather than the cartoons The Children's Channel originally aired. On Sky Digital and NTL, Trouble was in the children's section, due to being a channel aimed at teenage year groups. However, on Telewest, it was in the entertainment section.

In 2003, a timeshift network - Trouble Reload, launched on Sky Digital. It was added to Telewest on 21 July 2003.[2]

In 2006, Trouble was restructured to focus more explicitly on the teenage audience, with the channel moving out of the "Kids" package on Sky and to the "Entertainment" package, and gained a new logo and ident package. The timeshift service - Trouble Reload, was renamed to Trouble +1.

Closure

On 3 February 2009, it was announced that Trouble +1 would close down on 5 February and would be replaced with Living2 +1, a timeshift service of Living2.[3] Following this news, on 17 March, Virgin Media Television announced that they would close down Trouble outright and replace it with an unknown Living network, later revealed to be a two-hour timeshift of the main channel.[4] The channel was closed in April that year after 12 years airing and was replaced with Living +2 that day.

Programmes

References
  1. "U.K.'s TCC M.I.A." Kidscreen. 1 April 1998. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  2. "Trouble Reload, Bravo +1 come to Telewest". Digital Spy. 18 July 2003.
  3. "Trouble timeshift axed for more Living2". Digital Spy. 2009-02-03.
  4. Welsh, James (March 17, 2009). "Virgin Media to axe Trouble channel". Digital Spy.
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