Dplay has become Discovery’s online platform for content from its free to air channels, replacing QuestOD.
Dplay combines content from Quest, Quest Red, Food Network and DMAX, along with that from recently acquired Home and Really. Home and Really on-demand content has now been removed from UKTV Play, the equivalent streaming service of their former owners.
Home is expected to rebrand as HGTV, but a date for this is yet to be confirmed.
Former UKTV channel Good Food is to close, with its shows to be merged into the Food Network UKchannel. Good Food is currently a pay TV channel, whilst Food Network is a free-to-air channel on all major TV platforms.
Good Food was acquired by Discovery earlier this year, along with Really and Home when UKTV was split between the BBC and Discovery. Home is to become a UK version of Discovery’s HGTV (Home and Garden TV) channel. Really continues for the time being.
Good Food will close during the night o 13th to 14th September.
As expected, Quest has now inherited the number 12 slot on Freeview, previously used by Dave and briefly Home. Home can now be found on number 42, whilst DMAX has now been promoted the channel 37, the old number for Quest.
Viewers who receive these channels may need to retune for the channels to move to their correct positions. Some receivers will make these changes automatically.
As part of the split of UKTV, some Freeview channels will be changing numbers on Monday (10th June). This is part of the deal between the BBC and Discovery, with Discovery receiving the channel number 12.
Home, due to be acquired by Discovery, will take over channel 12 from Dave, which returns to its original number 19. Yesterday will in turn move from 19 to 25, which is the current ‘home’ of Home. Dave and Yesterday are to become part of the BBC’s commercial arm BBC Studios.
It is expected that Home will only be on channel 12 for a short time, with Discovery’s Quest likely to take over the slot.
Following UKTV removing its channels from online platform TVplayer, the company has introduced live streams of its Freeview channels to its UKTV Play website.
The channels included are:
These channels will also be available to live stream on UKTV Play mobile apps in the next few weeks. The UKTV Play website can be found at uktvplay.co.uk.
BBC Studios and Discovery have announced details of how UKTV will split.
BBC Studios will take over Alibi, Dave, Drama, Eden, Gold, Yesterday and W. Discovery will take over Good Food, Home, and Really.
BBC Studios will take over the UKTV Play on-demand catch up service. A 10 year deal will see the BBC content launch on Discovery’s new global subscription on-demand video service, excluding the UK, Ireland, and China.
The split has been rumoured for some time, following Discovery inheriting the UKTV share that was owned by Scripps Networks.
