Pop (UK and Ireland)

History

It was launched on 29 May 2003, it was known as Toons and Tunes for a month, it was rebranded as Pop in June 2003. Links in between programmes featured a Scottish-accented dragon named Rory (who was originally called Tricky and appeared in the CITV series Tricky and spoke with an English accent) and his cat Purrdy.

Originally, the channel was mainly music videos until February 2004, when cartoons were first shown. Music videos were kept on the channel, but were then dropped entirely during mid-2006. They were later revived in early 2007, but only during a 60-minute slot called "Pop Party", now on Pop Girl.

In October 2006, a further change was added: Now the all cap letters ("!" included) are in 3D and are shown dancing or chasing each other and eventually spelling out the logo "POP!". This ident was set to music very similar to the song Yakety Sax, though this was changed after a few months, perhaps due to the similarity.

In September 2008, Pop changed its logo to purple and red and aired different shows.

Some of the programmes on Pop have previously screened on other UK channels (and hence it's assumed that the previous rights to show have lapsed); some have not been screened in the UK before. In some cases, the channel which previously broadcast a programme is now defunct (such as TCC, Discovery Kids and Toonami).

On 11 October 2007, Pop was launched onto Virgin Media, along with its sister channel Tiny Pop.

In 2008, Pop was made available on the then newly launched Freesat platform.

Pop was removed from Virgin Media on 28 February 2011 so that True Entertainment could launch. However, Pop relaunched on Virgin Media on August 25, 2016, along with Movie Mix and Movies4Men.

Although they are now rarely aired in favour of newer content, POP is the sole television channel in the UK to air shows made by now-defunct animation studio DiC.

Freeview

On 20 March 2014, Pop was launched on Freeview. As a result, some pre school programming from its sister channel Tiny Pop started being broadcast on Pop. The pre school programmes would be broadcast between 9am to 3pm every weekday during school term, and they showed programmes such as Little Bear, The Adventures of Chuck and Friends, Numberjacks, Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs and Timothy Goes to School amongst other Tiny Pop shows. This ceased in February 2015 as a result of Tiny Pop having also become available on Freeview.

On 8 May 2014, Pop started to timeshare (6am-10pm) with sister channel Chart Show TV (10pm-6am) when this launched on Freeview, until 3 September 2014 when Chart Show TV migrated to Manchester-only service; as a result Pop now broadcasts 24 hours.

On 8 September 2014, the Freeview EPG stated on channel 126, that Pop +1 would commence broadcasting on Freeview in September, available from 3pm to 7pm daily on a nationwide multiplex (thus with wider availability than the core Pop service). Transmission began on 16 September from 3pm. This arrangement was discontinued on 23 October 2014, whereby Pop +1 migrated to broadcast from a multiplex only available in the Greater Manchester area (the same multiplex broadcasting the sister channel Chart Show TV on Freeview.) In its new arrangement, Pop +1 broadcasts 24 hours a day. The former nationwide Pop +1 slot started to carry Tiny Pop from 3pm to 7pm daily, increasing to 21 hours a day (3am to midnight) in January 2015.

Prior to April 2016, Pop was only available in areas where there is a local TV channel. On 1 April 2016, Pop moved to a wider coverage nationwide freeview mux, so it is now available to over 90% of the country. The capacity vacated by Pop on the local multiplex will be used to transmit Kix from 7 April 2016. Pop +1 moved to LCN channel 128, to release 127 for use by Kix, but was otherwise unaffected, continuing to broadcast locally to Manchester only.

Programming

Pop Through the Night

A late-night schedule followed, consisting of a show running back-to-back. The block ran from 12:00am to 5:00am, then the second block running until 6am. These two blocks are entitled as Pop Through the Night. Pop Through the Night was discontinued in January 2016.

Pop Through the Night programming

The programme that showed until closure:

Pop Party

"Pop Party" was a selection of music videos aired on Pop, usually in the form of a 30 or 60 minute programming block.

CSC Media licences the Pop Party name and brand for use on a series of pop music compilations released by Universal Music's compilations arm U.M.T.V.

Pop Junior

Since 12 May 2008, a new block was introduced called "Pop Junior", which has the word "Junior" added to the channel's logo between 9am and 12pm every weekday during school term time. The block shows programmes aimed at the younger end of Pop's audience, such as Inspector Gadget or Fraggle Rock.

Popfun.co.uk

Pop's website includes a TV guide and more features such as quizzes, art galleries, jokes, games and competitions. This was launched shortly after Tiny Pop's website.

Pop +1

A timeshift service called Pop +1 was available until 2008.

The AGB Nielsen Media Research website first announced that Pop+1 would close and would be replaced by a new channel called Klix!, however, this was a mistake and the channel was now in fact called Kix!. The correction was made with a new article being posted. It was stated that all the other details will remain the same of which was posted in the original article. Pop+1 officially closed at 6.00am on Monday 19 May, when it was replaced with Kix!.

Pop +1 returned on 14 July 2014, replacing Kix +.