Now 80s
NOW 80s is a British free-to-air music television channel, focusing exclusively on playing music from the 1980s. The channel launched in its current form on 27 December 2016, initially as a temporary pop-up rebrand of Now Music, previously a contemporary pop channel. The 80s format was subsequently made permanent.
| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Picture format | 16:9 576i SDTV |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | All Around the World Productions |
| Sister channels | Now 70s Now 90s Clubland TV |
| History | |
| Launched | 23 October 2013 |
| Replaced | Greatest Hits TV |
| Former names | Now Music TV (2013–2016) |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| Freeview | Channel 76 |
| Cable | |
| Virgin Media | Channel 346 |
| Satellite | |
| Sky (UK only) | Channel 362 |
| Astra 2G (28.2°E) | 11082 H 22000 5/6 |
History
In October 2013, Greatest Hits TV was replaced with a channel based on the Now That's What I Call Music! compilation brand, marking the 30th anniversary year of the Now! series. The new channel played a mix of current/contemporary and classic pop hits, broadcasting strands such as Britain's Hit 40.
In the run-up to Christmas each year, Now Music would flip to a Christmas music format under the name NOW Christmas, with the temporary suspension of the normal contemporary output (in 2012, Greatest Hits TV became "Christmas Hits TV").
Following the Christmas 2016 run of NOW Christmas, rather than return to the usual format as in prior years, Now Music instead transitioned on 27 December to carry solely 1980s music, under the banner of "NOW 80s". It was initially thought this would be temporary, and that the previous NOW Music would resume in early 2017, but the success of the 1980s format saw this retained indefinitely. Following the success of NOW 80s, sister channel Chilled TV was retooled as 1990s music station Chilled 90s from March 2017; this channel was then used for NOW Christmas in 2017 (allowing the Christmas format and the 80s station to run simultaneously), before fully rebranded as NOW 90s from 27 December 2017. From 20 November to 26 December 2018, NOW 80s was rebranded temporarily as NOW Christmas, and was repeated again in 2019 while NOW 80s moved to the slot formerly used by Total Country,[1] and a similar change happened in 2020 with NOW 80s moving to the slot usually used by NOW 90s.
From 9 until 16 October 2020, NOW 80s rebranded temporarily as LENNON80 to mark what would've been John Lennon's 80th birthday.[2]
Carriage
In November 2017, NOW 80s and NOW 90s (then broadcasting as NOW Christmas) were added to the GMAN Freeview multiplex broadcasting to Greater Manchester. In June 2018 availability of NOW 80s was extended to Freeview HD owners in more parts of the country by relocating to the Arqiva COM8 multiplex. Now 90s continued to broadcast to Manchester only, until 26 February 2019, when it was relocated to the COM8 multiplex.
In July 2018, around the same time as the UKTV network of channels was being removed from Virgin Media, the cable platform added NOW 80s as a discrete channel adjacent to Clubland TV on the guide; for some time previously, NOW 80s and other AATW channels had been available to Virgin TiVo boxes as internet-streamed services accessed behind the red button via Clubland.
References
- Total Country [@TotalCountryTV] (19 November 2019). "We have an important announcement to make" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- "LENNON80. A Pop-up TV channel in the UK & Ireland - to celebrate John Lennon's 80th birthday". The John Lennon Estate. Retrieved 6 October 2020.