Great Romance Set for New Year Launch

Narrative Entertainment UK are making a line-up change, to their network of four ‘Great!’ branded channels, once the annual Great Movies Christmas channel comes to an end.

In line with the now annual Christmas tradition, Great Movies Classic has temporarily rebranded as Great Movies Christmas, showing a variety of festive films. However, instead of reverting back at the end of the festive period, Great Romance will launch in its place on January 5th 2023.

The channel will remain free-to-air, and will specialise in feel good romantic films, instead of the more general selection of classic films of its predecessor. It is presumed the annual festive Great Movies Christmas will return again over the 2023/24 festive season.

Great Movies Christmas is currently available on Freeview channel no. 52 (limited coverage), Freesat channel no. 303, channel no. Sky 319 (satellite, not Glass/Stream) and Virgin Media channel no. 424. Great Romance will take over on these channel numbers on January 5th 2023, joining Great Movies, Great Movies Action, Great TV, and Children’s brand Pop, in Narrative Entertainment’s portfolio. This is the first significant change to the line-up since Narrative’s acquisition of Sony’s former TV channel portfolio in the UK.

Sony Sells UK TV Channels

Sony, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company, has sold its portfolio of UK television channels to US investment firm Narrative Capital. The channels sold include the Sony Channel, Sony Movies, Sony Movies Action, and Sony Movies Classic which feature the Sony brand, and children’s channels Pop, Pop Max, and Tiny Pop.

The use of the Sony brand has not been included in the sale, and as such the Sony brand will be replaced with the Great! brand on the 25th May (2021). The Pop brand is expected to be retained, and the programme line-up is also expected to remain similar in the short term.

The current Sony branded channel line-up formed as recently as January 2020, when the True and Movies4Men brands were discontinued in favour of a rationalised channel line up under the unified Sony brand.