The Children's Channel

The Children's Channel, abbreviated as TCC, is a British satellite television channel owned by Flextech Broadcasting Ltd, a part of the Colibri Group.
It was launched on 10 June 2018 as a relaunch of the defunct original TCC channel owned by the original Flextech.
== History ==
=== 1984-1992 ===
The original version of The Children's Channel was launched on the original Eutelsat satellite on 1 September 1984, almost exclusively to cable households owing to the low proliferation of domestic satellite dishes in Europe, the Middle East and Africa at the time. The channel was owned by Starstream (a joint venture of British Telecom, DC Thomson, Thames Television and Thorn EMI) and worked closely with Warner-Amex. The channel was directed by Richard Wolfe, who had previously worked at Warner. "The Children's Channel" was created according to the old Nickelodeon concept (previously owned by Warner-Amex Cable Communications). The office was located in London at 6/7 D'Arblay Street.
In March 1989, The Children's Channel started airing free-to-air on the SES-owned Astra 1A satellite, airing from 5.00am to 10.00am on weekdays and from 5.00am to 12.00pm on weekends, time-sharing with Lifestyle. Following the launch of the Astra 1B satellite in 1991, The Children's Channel expanded to broadcast until 7.00pm each day, time-sharing with JSTV. In 1990, Flextech acquired its first stake in the company, beating United Artists Cable International to gain a stake. In 1991, United bought its own stake in The Children's Channel and won the management contract to run it. In late 1993, Flextech held talks with Tele-Communications and acquired TCI's European programming business in exchange for shares, giving TCI a 50%-60% stake in the enlarged Flextech group. The deal was completed which resulted in Flextech increasing its stake from 50.1% to 75%.
=== 1992-1998 ===
In 1992, The Children's Channel launched an evening block showing programming of greater interest to older children and teenagers. The segment, called simply TCC, aired from 5.00pm to 7.00pm, and featured a number of home-produced programmes, such as CDQ and TVFM, as well as American imports including Saved by the Bell. During the day, The Children's Channel continued targeting younger children, and a large amount of its programming output was still archive animated series from the 1980s. As time went on, the TCC block extended its hours, initially starting half an hour earlier at 4.30pm, until the focus on teen programmes eventually became more prominent across The Children's Channel, which became known as TCC all day long. The demographic shift repositioned the channel away from its newly established competitors Nickelodeon UK and Cartoon Network Europe, to a market not adequately covered by others.
On 1 September 1993, it cut back its air hours to 6.00am to 5.00pm, allowing Family Channel to share its space with The Children's Channel, now a subscription service on the Astra 1A satellite via the Sky Multichannels package. By 5 June 1995, Flextech completed its acquisition of The Children's Channel when it acquired the remaining 25.1% stake in Starstream for £15 million.
In mid-1996, Flextech were in talks with Fox and News Corp to sell off a 50% stake in The Children's Channel; however, extremely lengthy negotiations made it impossible to secure a deal. Flextech tried to undertake negotiations to secure a different form of investment in The Children's Channel, but decided to refocus on the teen and youth markets instead. News Corp went on to launch Fox Kids in a joint venture with sister company Sky. This strongly affected TCC as they no longer had access to most of Fox and Saban Entertainment's library. On 3 February 1997, all the programmes targeting older children was by then airing were split off into Trouble with TCC reverted to the original name of The Children's Channel and continuing to screen programmes for younger children, running side by side with Trouble.
=== 1998-2005 ===
On 3 April 1998, the original pan-European operations of The Children's Channel on Eutelsat's Hot Bird both unexpectedly and silently closed after 14 years. Ratings had fallen massively due to competitors Nickelodeon UK, Cartoon Network Europe, Disney Channel UK and Fox Kids UK launching within three years of each other, reducing TCC's viewer share to 0.2% by its closure. The exodus of teen programmes to Trouble only accelerated its decline. Flextech officially stated that it only wished to focus on the teen market, and there were "so many other channels designed for [TCC's former target audience]". After the closure, Trouble's hours expanded to start at 7.00am. Upon the closure of the pan-regional TCC Europe channel, Cable & Wireless carried the localized TCC Nordic feed for a few months due to the company's anger at the closure of TCC at such short notice. On 5 October 1998, it was taken off the service and its slot was filled by Fox Kids.
However, due to a pre-agreed contract signed some years before to air The Children's Channel in Scandinavia until October 2000, Flextech created an advertisement-free version of TCC known as TCC Nordic to fulfil this requirement to air until 2000 as arranged before finally ceasing transmission. As this service was only fulfilling a contractual requirement, it was totally automated and showed exactly the same four weeks of programming on a constant loop where technical difficulties were frequent. On 30 September 2000, when the Nordic feed's contract expired, TCC closed entirely, more than two years after the original channel's closure. The original website stayed running until late 2005.
=== 2018-present ===
In June 2018, Colibri Group decided to revive the TCC brand and bring it to the current century with the most recent programming. Thanks to Colibri's revival of TCC, the channel would be available worldwide, as well as new blocks for the new TCC, such as its Disney on TCC and Nick on TCC blocks. In 2020, TCC2 was launched as TCC's first sister channel after the original TCC's closedown. TCC became available on ColibriSat, and many other satellite television providers worldwide, including DirecTV, Sky, Canal+, Dish, SKY PerfecTV!, Allente, etc.
In May 2023, Toothpick plc has made a deal with Colibri Group in which the former planned a relaunch of Bravo, Channel One, Trouble, and LivingTV, which Colibri accepted, which might make TCC, TCC2, and Tiny TCC a part of the revived Flextech, officially Flextech Broadasting Ltd.
== Programming ==
In its day, TCC created some original programming. Connect 4 and The Super Mario Challenge were popular tea-time quiz shows. Some other 'in-between' show segments included Link Anchorman, featuring Chuck the Chimp and Hopper the Penguin. All of the puppets were created and performed by Hands Up Puppets, primarily Marcus Clarke and Helena Smee. Other television talent made an appearance or got an early break working on these series, including Konnie Huq, then awaiting news of her university place.
During school holidays, RatKan was aired between 7.00am and 12.00pm, with It's Droibee Time off air.
Some of today's producers also got valuable early television introduction experience on these series including Lisa Opie, Tim Lowe, Karen Ward, and Mike Crosby. A live-action quiz programme, Around the World in 80 Seconds is produced for the channel in 1993–94 was hosted by Timmy Mallett as Captain Everything, schoolchildren participated in a quiz based on geography and general knowledge of particular countries, before "replaying" famous scenarios from the history of their chosen country as the top team received a prize of a four-day trip to the then-new Euro Disney (currently Disneyland Paris).
Since its 2018 revival, TCC added some more recent programmes for the 21st century, for example, Peppa Pig, Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go!, Thomas & Friends, Caillou, WordWorld, Arthur, Danger Mouse, Inspector Gadget, Bing, and more. Alongside some licensed programmes, TCC also makes original shows, such as The Adventures of Felicia Cat, in which the main character is Felicia Cat, TCC's official mascot since October 2022.
== Availability ==
=== Satellite ===
ColibriSat - channel 824
Sky - channel 627
Toothpick - channel 607
=== Cable ===
Colibri Cable - channel 514
Virgin Media UK - channel 708
=== Terrestrial ===
BT TV - channel 472 (SD), channel 478 (HD), channel 479 (+1)
== International channels ==
Since TCC's 2018 relaunch, Colibri Broadcasting has launched worldwide feeds of this channel.
Region(s) 	Launch date 	Language(s) 	Coverage and availability notes
Arab World 	24 April 2022 	Arabic 	From Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Asia Pacific 	11 February 2022 	English, Indonesian, Thai, Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Tamil 	From Bangkok, Thailand, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Singapore
Asia Pacific 	20 March 2023 (Taiwan) 	English, Indonesian, Thai, Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Tamil 	From Taipei City, Taiwan
Australia and New Zealand 	1 September 2022 	English 	From Sydney, NSW, Australia
Benelux 	10 June 2018 (as part of TCC Europe) 	English, Dutch, French, German, and Luxembourgish 	From Hilversum, Netherlands
Canada 	1 January 2022 	English and French 	From Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Central and Eastern Europe 	10 June 2018 (as part of TCC Europe) 	Romanian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, and English 	From Prague, Czechia
France 	20 June 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	French and English 	From Paris, France
Germany 	20 June 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	German and English 	From Munich, Germany
Austria 	21 June 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	German and English 	From Munich, Germany
Switzerland 	21 June 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	German, French, Italian, Romansh, and English 	From Munich, Germany
Greece 	22 June 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	Greek and English 	From Athens, Greece
India (South Asia) 	8 August 2022 	English, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, and Telugu 	From Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Israel 	14 June 2018 (as part of TCC Europe) 	Hebrew, Arabic, and English 	From Tel Aviv, Israel
Italy 	15 June 2018 (as part of TCC Europe) 	Italian, German, and English 	From Rome, Italy
Italy 	20 March 2022 (as an independent feed) 	Italian, German, and English 	From Rome, Italy
Japan 	21 June 2018 	Japanese and English 	From Tokyo, Japan
Latin America 	11 June 2019 	Latin American Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and English (translated continuity on SAP)	From Buenos Aires, Argentina
South Atlantic (Latin America)	11 June 2019 (as part of the Latin American feed)	Latin American Spanish and English (translated continuity on SAP) 	From Buenos Aires, Argentina
Pacific (Latin America) 	11 June 2019 (as part of the Latin American feed)	Latin American Spanish and English (translated continuity on SAP) 	From Buenos Aires, Argentina
North Atlantic (Latin America)	11 June 2019 (as part of the Latin American feed)	Latin American Spanish and English (translated continuity on SAP) 	From Buenos Aires, Argentina
Middle East and Africa 	10 June 2018 (as part of TCC Europe) 	English, Arabic, Greek 	From London, England, UK
Nordic 	10 June 2018 (as part of TCC Europe) 	English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Icelandic 	From London, England, UK
Pakistan 	23 September 2022 	English and Urdu 	From Karachi, Pakistan
Philippines 	12 February 2022 (as part of TCC Asia Pacific) 	English and Filipino 	From Quezon City, Philippines
Poland 	14 April 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	Polish and English 	From Munich, Germany
Portugal 	14 April 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	European Portuguese and English 	From London, England, UK
CIS 	14 April 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, and English 	From London, England, UK
Baltics 	15 April 2019 (as part of TCC Europe) 	Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, and English 	From Warsaw, Poland
Southeast Europe 	1 December 2019 	Bulgarian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, Bosnian, Albanian, Macedonian, and English 	From Munich, Germany
South Korea 	10 January 2020 	Korean and English 	From Seoul, South Korea
Spain 	13 May 2021 (as part of TCC Europe) 	European Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque, and English 	From London, England, UK
Turkey 	12 February 2022 	Turkish and English 	From Istanbul, Turkey
United States 	11 June 2018 	English and Spanish 	From New York, NY, USA
United Kingdom and Ireland 	10 June 2018 (as part of TCC Europe) 	English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic 	From London, England, UK
Malta 	10 June 2018 (as part of TCC UK) 	English and Maltese 	From London, England, UK
Cyprus 	2 October 2022 (as part of TCC Europe) 	Greek, Turkish, and English 	From Athens, Greece
== Related services ==
TCC +1 was launched on 11 June 2022. It currently serves as the one-hour timeshift channel of TCC.
== See also ==
* TCC2
* Tiny TCC
* TCC Girl
Category:Colibri Group Ltd.
Category:United Kingdom
Category:Television channels and stations established in 2018
Category:The Children's Channel