Timeshift service Ftn+1 Founded 2003 | Freeview Channel 20 Owner Living TV Group | |
Launched 15 January 2003 (2003-01-15) Closed 1 October 2007 (2007-10-01) Owned by Virgin Media Television Replaced by Virgin1 later Channel One | ||
Ftn (Flextech Television Network) was a British television channel from Virgin Media Television (formerly known as Flextech) transmitting free-to-air on Freeview and Virgin Media, and as a subscription channel on Sky Digital. The channel was broadcast between 18:00 and 06:00 daily. It launched at 18:00 on 15 January 2003, six hours after neighbouring Freeview channel, UKTV Bright Ideas, also partially owned by Virgin Media Television which itself closed down on 14 October 2007.
Contents
Ftn's schedule featured entertainment and reality programming, and also programming from other Virgin Media Television cable channels, such as Living, Living2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Trouble, and Challenge. This provided a preview to Freeview viewers of what the other Virgin Media channels offered, in a similar fashion to BSkyB's Sky3, a channel also on Freeview.
Ftn +1 launched on Sky and Virgin Media on 9 August 2007. Despite being a one-hour timeshift, Ftn +1 only broadcast from 19:00 until 01:00 as Live Roulette TV which was shown on Ftn from 00:00 till 03:00 could not be rebroadcast an hour later for legal reasons.
Programming
Closure
It was announced in the summer of 2007 that Virgin Media Television was to launch a new channel, Virgin 1. The new channel launched on Monday 1 October 2007. The channel being intended to be Virgin Media's attempt to rival Sky1.
As a result of the launch of Virgin1, it was revealed that Ftn would close, leaving its EPG positions on Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview to Virgin 1.
Ftn closed on Monday 1 October 2007 at 06:00 with Virgin 1 launching at 18:00 but actually at 21:00 on the same day. At the same time, Ftn's timeshift channel Ftn+1 was replaced by Virgin1+1 on cable and satellite. With the sale of VMTV to Sky in 2010, led to Virgin1 rebranding as the Channel One before being closed on 1 February 2011.