TV Channels that never left their embryonal stage

[Francisque]

So strange Local TV never took off in the UK, especially when in countries like Italy there are too many (unregulated) local channels.

I guess there was too much regulation on analogue transmission in the UK, with just 4/5 channels, in the past, while none or almost none in Italy.
I prefer the German approach, when a smaller but more "decent" amount of local channels (in a smaller number) exist, and also aided by local governments investments.
I'm not just talking about the "third stations" from ARD, which are a different thing, I'm talking about private stations based on cities or specific cultural regions.

Still incredible that too prominent cities like Liverpool and Manchester, for instance, get the same regional feeds under BBC NW and ITV Granada. At least a sub-feed, in these cases, is needed

But it's too late now, local TV is never going to become prominent in 2022. It should have launched much earlier.


EDIT: even my relatively small city, has a local station here in Italy!
Not that great, but not that bad either.. and I'm not even considering regional/sub-regional stations

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

Virgin Media considered launching their own news channel as a joint venture with ITN back in 2007 but it never went beyond consideration.

ITN would consider news channel partnership

ITN hasn't ruled out the possibility of producing a 24-hour TV news service for another broadcaster.

www.digitalspy.com

 

[themidnightlore]

I guess I can hijack my own thread.

Apparently, this logo for Sony Animax was part of a rebrand that never happened, a prototype.
For long I was torn on believing if it was legit or it was actually a really good fanmade. The question is: do you think there are other prototypes for other channels by Sony that just never saw the light (like, it does exist one for Sony Crime, as when in UK the rebrand happened, Sony Crime Channel just stayed the same? Understandable as its future was to be closed, but who knows if internally they did thought of that.)

The curious thing is that between Sony AXN and Sony Cine, there were a year and four months of waiting (Sony AXN Germany + Sony Channel Germany happened in October 2019, Sony Movies US + Sony Cine happened in Febraury 2021), so, maybe things did happen in the background, but never got to leave the prototype status?

 

[pacman000]

There are almost always alternate versions of logos, posters, titles, etc, which are never used. Very rarely they're shown to the public, like E.T. & Me or Revenge of the Jedi.

So, yeah, there are unused Sony logos. Some are probably just rough sketches; others are complete or nearly complete. It's just part of the process of bringing a good to the public in a way the public would like it.

 

[Streaker Prower]

There was going to be a Spin-Off Channel to YTV's Bionix Block called YTV POW! back in 2008. It's license were approved by the CRTC in 2008, along with YTV OneWorld (Which it's license was used to launch Nickelodeon Canada), But I don't know what happened to the license for YTV POW!.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

There was going to be a Spin-Off Channel to YTV's Bionix Block called YTV POW! back in 2008. It's license were approved by the CRTC in 2008, along with YTV OneWorld (Which it's license was used to launch Nickelodeon Canada), But I don't know what happened to the license for YTV POW!.

Oh yeah, they were considering launching a new channel called "The Anime Channel", but never got off the ground, probably because Bionix died..

On the other hand, back in 2004, Sony and Comcast was planning to launch American versions of Sony Entertainment Television, AXN and Animax.

It never happened, but you could say that some of the elements from SET was eventually used in GetTV, but that's a classic channel.

 

[themidnightlore]

Oh yeah, they were considering launching a new channel called "The Anime Channel", but never got off the ground, probably because Bionix died..

On the other hand, back in 2004, Sony and Comcast was planning to launch American versions of Sony Entertainment Television, AXN and Animax.

It never happened, but you could say that some of the elements from SET was eventually used in GetTV, but that's a classic channel.

This is the second time I hear of "Sony wanted to launch AXN, Animax and SET in the USA", this time with a year.
I wonder why then they decided of not doing that.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

This is the second time I hear of "Sony wanted to launch AXN, Animax and SET in the USA", this time with a year.
I wonder why then they decided of not doing that.

We will probably quite frankly never know, but I can assume that deals fell off the table, and maybe the collapse of the American anime industry.

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

There were plans for CNX to launch in the United States but it never materialised as the channel was rebranded as Toonami UK in September 2003.

Improving Product Placement | TVWeek

www.tvweek.com

 

[Francisque]

The Biography Channel (later Bio. and later Lifetime or something else that flopped lol) was supposed to launch in Italy on Sky in 2003, never happened

 

[themidnightlore]

The Biography Channel (later Bio. and later Lifetime or something else that flopped lol) was supposed to launch in Italy on Sky in 2003, never happened

So, it means that it would have launched together with History? And then it would have become A&E. And then Blaze. Oh, wait, that's what happened in Spain!

 

[harry580]

There were plans for CNX to launch in the United States but it never materialised as the channel was rebranded as Toonami UK in September 2003.

Improving Product Placement | TVWeek

www.tvweek.com

I can imagine a Alternative timeline where that actually happens and that cnx got rebranded in both uk & us as toonami in 2005 before becoming cartoon network too in 2007

 

[RegularCapital]

Article I wrote about a planned Milkshake pre-school channel from Channel 5 that almost launched. Channel 5 Had Plans To Launch A Milkshake Preschool Channel

My Nick at Nite UK article belongs here too: Why Nick At Nite UK Didn't Launch In 1994?

 

[themidnightlore]

Since this thread was revived, gotta ask for something.
So, we know that Sony did fail to launch Animax in UK as a proper linear channel. And that they had plans to launch it in Italy (as they did test the waters with a branded block on AXN).
But... What about Poland? It always felt a little strange that they did skip that country, since the rest of the CEE region did got it.
Maybe they had plans but something happened?

 

[Francisque]

Wasn't AXN Spin kind of that?

At a time when I believe they started winding down the Animax brand anyway (2012)

 

[themidnightlore]

Wasn't AXN Spin kind of that?

At a time when I believe they started winding down the Animax brand anyway (2012)

Well, Animax CEE launched in 2007, so, I wondered.
And I do think that AXN Sci-Fi (CEE) before AXN Spin did air some anime. Maybe they (Sony) wanted to Europeize (?) Sony Spin, so AXN Spin happened. (Also, you might be on track, since the original AXN Spin presentation did use bits from the idents from the other Animax presentation (you know, the one used in LATAM before its demise, Spain and Germany))

True too, by 2012, a part of those Animax already was gone (LATAM, South Africa, Portugal) or started/was into that network decay that brought their end (CEE, Spain).
(India, Asia and Germany need to not apply, two of those died later on the road, the other still exists under someone else)