Sci Fi Channel (United Kingdom)
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- See Sci Fi Channel for a list of other Sci Fi channels.
| Sci Fi | |
 |
|
|---|---|
| Launched | 1 November 1995 |
| Owned by | NBC Universal |
| Audience share | 0.3% and (0.1% for +1) (Sep' 06, Source:[1]) |
| Website | www.scifiuk.com |
| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| Sky Digital | Channel 129 |
| Cable | |
| NTL:Telewest | Channel 135 |
Sci Fi is the name of a United Kingdom satellite television channel specialising in science fiction, fantasy, and horror shows and movies. When launched in 1995 it was called The Sci-Fi Channel and was set up by the owners of the original American Sci Fi Channel, but is now independent.
Its programming for the first few years (both before and after independence) consisted of a mixture of both archive shows such as Lost in Space, The Incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and more recent shows. The channel was also notable for being one of the first UK television channels to show anime movies and television series on a regular basis. These programming choices were supplemented by a few 1980s animated series shown in the mornings such as Robotech, Bionic Six and G-Force, although they were dropped when the channel became independent of the original US version. Currently, most archive and anime programming have been phased out of the channel, which now concentrates on contemporary shows and movies.
Programmes on the channel throughout more recent times have included UK premieres of series 3 and 4 of Lexx, the Dune miniseries, Farscape, the TV series of Stephen King's The Dead Zone and Firefly. One Sci-fi original production is the late-night show Headf**k (asterisks theirs), which features excerpts from weird and wonderful TV shows, short films and music videos from around the world. Later episodes were presented by David Icke.
Increasingly in the last few years, some movies shown on the channel have had what have been remarked by some as 'dubious' science-fiction connections, regardless of their overall quality, like Fight Club. In recent years, the channel's choice to show late-night premium-rate gambling shows and soft-core porn such as 'Emmanuel In Space' and 'The Sex Files' has caused the station severe ridicule.
Initially, the UK Sci-Fi Channel on satellite television shared its transponder with no less than five other channels at one point, limiting its output to early evenings and late nights, with the rest of its continuous daytime programming (including cartoons) restricted to cable.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
| edit | NBC Universal, Inc. (a subsidiary of General Electric) |
