Murro

The channel's third logo, in use since the 3rd of January 2022.

***Murro*** (formally ***MurroTV***) is a British free-to-air television channel that is available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and other European countries. Launching on 24th November 2003 on Sky, MurroTV was designed as a general entertainment channel, a design that has stuck around since the channel's inception. When MurroTV was launched on Freeview in early 2005, it opened a new door to loads more viewers, which made the channel more popular amongst people.

The channel rebranded to simply Murro on 9th January 2012. The rebranding was part of a larger effort to streamline the channel's image and appeal to a broader audience. After this, it gained more viewers to tune into the upcoming UK premiere of American series *Grimm*, of which is won the rights against from UKTV's *Watch* (now called *W*). Starting in 2014, more and more people have been tuning into the channel, of which it has been credited for giving *South Park* more of an audience in the UK.

Murro is now just above UKTV in terms of quality, according to a survey from BARB in 2021. Murro's parent company, the Murro Media Group, have since launched a second channel called *Murro2*, launched a streaming service called *Murro+*, and acquired *Challenge* from Sky.

## History

### Origins: Late 2002 - Early 2003

The channel came to be under the influence of Mark and Adam Davis who were planning on launching a TV channel from scratch. The plans were to call the channel *MATV* (named after the brothers themselves) but decided against it and settled on the name MurroTV because it sounded nice. The word TV was added after it in order to not confuse with anything else called Murro. The programming would be a mix of original programmes and imports from America.

By early 2003, the channel received a license to broadcast by November of the same year on Sky channel 195.

### Promotion: August - November 2003

In August of 2003, promotion for the channel began across the British Isles with several posters made for the programmes on the channel, especially *South Park*, whose license they claimed from Channel 4 for a fairly cheap but expensive deal of £467,500. To go along, several television channels ran promos for MurroTV at least twice a day. In early September, test transmissions for the channel began on channel 195 on Sky. These included engineering tests and random colour bars throughout the day.

In early November, even more promos began airing on other channels about the forthcoming launch of MurroTV, in the hopes of it attracting an audience to justify the marketing.

### Launch: 24 November 2003

At 6pm on 24th November 2003, the launch caption for MurroTV appeared on Sky channel 195, indicating that the channel itself would be launched at 7pm. At 7pm, the first ident played out, followed by a two-hour launch party hosted by Matthew Brown and Alice Lynch, which included highlights of MurroTV shows, interviews with the stars of the shows, and musical performances from small time music group across the UK. This was followed at 9pm by the British superhero parody series *Superpolice!* which is set in a futuristic London where the police act as superheroes to stop crime across the city. After that, it was *The Prankmen*, which was a reality prank comedy series, featuring the titular prankmen, who use a variety of props to fool the public. At 10pm, the new original drama premiered called *Mr. Lost*, following a male widower who faces a life on loneliness from the public and has to find a purpose before something "bad" happens.

Following this, the first ever episode of the animated sitcom *South Park* aired uncensored. Then it was the British adult animated short film series, *Sick and Twisted*, which was a co-production with Channel 4. After *Entertainment Today* at 12:10am, there was the first ever episode of *Late Night Sizzle*, Murro's longest running programme, still airing to this day. It is a surrealist late night programme that combines videos from the internet, short clips, and occasionally pornography to create a strange visceral viewing for the viewer. Despite the concept, the programme is still popular with people today. After two repeats of *Superpolice!* and *The Prankmen*, the final programme to air on MurroTV on launch night was Visual Images for the Troubled Sleeper, which consisted of abstract images in an attempt to help the viewer fall asleep, complete with calming music.