Toffa

**Toffa** is a British free-to-air television channel that is available in the United Kingdom and other European countries. It launched on 1 September 2003 and is devoted to a mixture of entertainment, comedy and drama. The channel has begun to expand in recent years, with several shows growing an international fanbase.

## History

### 2002-2003: Beginnings and pre-launch

The creation of the channel went as far back as mid-2002 when best friends and telly-addicts Max Strapps and Eddie Lungs devised the idea of creating their own television channel from scratch. Initial plans were for the name to be TV Heaven; the idea being that it would be a channel free from repeats and imports, solely focusing on original-made content. Strapps and Lungs saved up as much as possible to plan the channel ahead for at least the next year. Because they weren't expecting it to be a big deal, they planned it to begin only on Sky Digital, and placed it towards the end of the entertainment channels, specifically channel 195. Furthermore, to give time for creating the channel and programming, the channel would only air for six hours daily from 3pm to 9pm.

By March 2003, the channel was greenlit with further changes made. Strapps and Lungs feared that the TV Heaven name would be an easy target for critics to parody, so they created a name from an acronym to develop the personality of their channel. They turned it from 'Turn On For Fun Always' into the name Toffa instead of it being displayed as T.O.F.F.A. They both intended to trick audiences into thinking that the name Toffa was something fancy that they came up with themselves, although they eventually revealed the truth in 2018 as part of the channel's 15th anniversary.

Also at that point, programming was in developments. The two main ones would become *The Microsoft Sam Show* and *Basic Tutorials* starting out respectively as an animated drawing of a character with a computerized voice and a simplified take on DIY items and other everyday objects. The two had by then took jobs to raise the cost to set the channel up in previous months and from April 2003, they began the process of launching and developing further programming. At the same time, they were also able to have the channel available via NTL as well as Sky. Promotional material for the channel began in July 2003 and continued up until launch day, most commonly on television.

### 1st September 2003: Launch day

Toffa went to air on at 2:00pm with a holding slide saying 'Toffa begins today at 3:00pm' which appeared for an hour until launch moment. The channel began with a short 90-second launch programme titled: 'Toffa Is Here!' simply devoted to questions and answers about it. This was followed by the first voice of the channel, lead continuity announcer Peter Miller. The first proper programme to air was The Microsoft Sam Show produced by Slinky Pictures, which sets up the series. The first advert to air was for Halifax featuring a 3D animated Howard Brown, whilst the following advert for esure featured the first human face to appear on Toffa: Michael Winner. The following adverts were then for Asda and Confused.com, completing the first set of adverts to air on Toffa.

*Basic Tutorials* was the next programme to air (unlike Microsoft Sam this was the first proper episode) with a tutorial on how to make a welcome home banner. The twist was that instead of showing how to create one alone, it showed how you could buy one and make adjustments. Other programmes that aired on launch day that remained included: *Useful and Useless* which ran until 2005, *Decorators* which ran until 2010 and *Entertainment Quickies* which ran until 2008.

### 2003-2007

Within weeks, Toffa's ratings peaked at an average of 100,000 daily, largely due to the amount of original content included, unlike most other digital channels. It did result in critics praising the content but panning the visual style of Toffa, due to the cheapness.

In November, Strapps and Lungs suggested extending the hours; even risking the idea of doing a breakfast television service as they felt it had become bare since the axing of 'The Big Breakfast' in March 2002. They also agreed to expand the hours in the evenings as well, meaning that the channel would now air from 9-12am. Part of the reason for the later start time was because the channel needs 'a lie down on the weekends like everyone else.' Unfortunately, the extended broadcast hours resulted in some minor budget cuts to help costs and for the channel to play safe for the time being. Furthermore, it was suggested to expand to other non-television viewers by launching a website. These would come into place from Monday 5 January 2004.

From then on weekdays, the channel began with *Toffa:AM*, presented by Nick Farley and Ellie Perkins and produced by Maverick Television (and would continue to do so until the end of 2017). Following that would be a selection of repeats from Toffa's past few months, intended as a stopgap until original programmes were commissioned for the daytime in the coming months. Following this, the regular schedule which had changed little from launch followed with other new programmes taking up the last three hours of the broadcast day.

For the weekends, a three hour morning entertainment show titled 'Wacky Weekends' aired from 9am-12pm again followed by a three-hour version of filler as shown on weekdays, which was later replaced by 'Slow Television', which would become Toffa's main filler programme until September 2004, but remained at certain points for a few more years. The main Saturday schedule began with *The Microsoft Sam Show* as normal, followed by *Toffa Talk*, a thirty-minute live programme that shared the same studio as *Toffa:AM*, focusing on the latest announcements from the channel on various programmes and people.

Afterwards is *Caught On Camera Calamities* known for many as being a cheap version of home-video programmes such as *You've Been Framed!* which in turn is the UK's main equivalent of the main American programme, *America's Funniest Home Videos*. The difference was that it had no studio links or presenter/narrator and instead focused on the home videos themselves. This set-up would partly inspire *You've Been Framed!* taking on a similar format later in the year when the studio links were gone, to be replaced with Harry Hill as the voiceover and emphasis on graphics.

The rest of 2004 was also seen to be fairly successful for the channel. Ratings averaged at 300,000 considering Sky Digital viewers which is significantly high and especially with it being a non-terrestrial channel. Following the popularity of Microsoft Sam in September 2004, it was decided that he should introduce the show himself which later became permanent due to the popular decision made, still to this day.

In 2005, Toffa wanted to expand on their style of programming by having a go at drama. They were given an outline for a programme by Tony Hoppings and Kevin Young which featured a sci-fi alien invasion originally titled: Zapnapped. The title was later changed to the more familiar title of *Timebomb* along with further plot developments. This was claimed to be done following the BBC's announcement of reviving *Doctor Who* which aired during the spring and Timebomb aired within the last three episodes of the first series, occasionally clashing with the show at some times.

At first, Toffa bravely risked doing it alone, however, Eddie Lungs felt it was necessary to be handled professionally, and thus was produced by Tiger Aspect. *Timebomb* would be one of two Tiger Aspect-produced sci-fi programmes on Toffa, followed by the original series of *Beyond the Galaxy*, running from 2007 to 2010.

For 2006, Strapps and Lungs had some thoughts about the internet. Toffa had a website and it's part of the internet. Almost immediately, the concept of an internet-based magazine show was developed as *Internet Interests*. The show went to air in May that year, often looking at the more popular websites from the UK and around the world. It also featured links from a presenter via an internet cafe and aired on Sundays from 10:30am.

## 2007-2011

In late 2006, Toffa upgraded their graphics package collection that they owned, allowing further ranges to be used as well as the opportunity to broadcast in widescreen. They would eventually do so from Monday 21 January 2007 which came along with six new idents and modified presentation. An array of new programming was also included, though several programmes began airing later than normal in order to receive the new widescreen cameras.

One of the breakthrough programmes that began in 2007 was *Austin Ward's Mid-Week Sandwich* (initially titled The Austin Ward Show), which aired twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30pm, having been noted that those days are often the quietest and least exciting of the week. The show itself wouldn't really be related and instead would act as a generic comedy-fronted programme. American Toffa-enthusiast Austin Ward fronted the show after frequently poking at suggestions of different programmes for the channel via email. None of the shows came into fruition, though Eddie Lungs claimed that his enthusiasm persuaded him to combine some elements into Austin's show.

In November 2007, Strapps and Lungs came up with a plan to create a programme featuring a group of people (trained as actors and presenters) doing a programme based on viewer requests for it to air on Sundays at 6pm so that the weekends would have synonymous live shows of different kinds along with *Toffa Talk*. This would eventually become *It's Your Show* which debuted on 13 April 2008 where the first three shows were devoted to the team reading out requests from viewers from the past several weeks. The first proper show aired on 4 May based on a viewer's request from Buckingham wanting a strong-man sketch show.

Also that year, a second spin-off from Advert Parodies and Ident Interruptions was launched titled Bits & Pieces which combines the two elements of the show together; giving the assumption of it being an uncut part of television. Viewer reaction was mixed; largely due to a combination of the two shows making them feel more exhausted. As a result, Bits & Pieces was dropped after one series, with Ident Interruptions axed in 2009 after claims of using up almost every ident possible including those used on Toffa. 2008 also saw the debut of popular drama series, *King of Israel*, and was among one of Toffa's highest rated shows, running until 2011.

## Most watched programmes

The following is a list of the seven most-watched broadcasts on Toffa up to 28 May 2023, based on Live +7 data supplied by BARB.

## Subsidiary channels

### Toffa HD

**Toffa HD**, a high-definition simulcast of Toffa, launched on 1 September 2014; coinciding with Toffa's 11th anniversary.

The channel had been in consideration since mid-2013, when most programmes began to be made in HD. It was initially planned for an April 2014 launch, where production on most of its programmes were subsequently moved to HD beforehand in advance. However, budget issues, plus the expected lack of viewers resulted in it being delayed, as well as Toffa insisting to launch the channel once all programmes were being made that way. This was completed shortly afterwards, with Toffa HD confirmed in July. A 4K service is in the works and is estimated to be released by the end of 2023.

## Branding

Using a concept of the slash as the channel logo in 2003, the channel's idents consisted of simplistic effects ranging from ripples, to fish eye and fog. All ten idents usually featured the Toffa DOG. Three Christmas idents were also used during the run featuring snow falling, a frost effect to the logo and presents and stars falling.

In January 2007 with the move to widescreen, six new idents were introduced, retaining a similar premise. The 2003 Christmas idents were carried over, albeit in widescreen along with two new additions including snowballs thrown at the logo and multicolour lights shining on the logo.

On Monday 26 April 2010, ten new idents were introduced, using the Toffa logo on-screen throughout with the slash interacting with varying stock footage from ink to elevators. Three new Christmas idents also debuted; dropping much of the previous lot after several years in use. The idents were used until 30 August 2013, just before Toffa began its 10th anniversary celebrations where the 2003 idents returned for the weekend.

With a new Toffa logo, six new individual idents debuted on Monday 2 September 2013 following the 10th anniversary, going back to basics with dropping live-action in favour of focusing just on the logo like the 2003 and 2007 idents with several different colour schemes.

On New Years' Day 2020, to mark the launch of 1989.1, thirty new idents were created; sharing elements of Central's later cake idents from the 1990s and Channel 5's later 2020 idents. The idents were cut down to a maximum of fifteen seconds, and each focus on model shots of the T-hole in varying landscapes; ending with the footage blurred as the channel logo fades in at the end.