Channel U TV

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Channel U TV
Owned by	Video Interactive Television
Website	[1]
Availability
Satellite
Sky Digital	Channel 360

Channel U TV is a digital satellite TV channel, owned by Video Interactive Television. It is available through Sky Digital within the UK on channel 360. It is also trying to add its programming to the NTL cable service. It plays primarily British 'Grime' music but is not restricted to it. The station is known for being the starting point for many UK urban acts as it plays lower budget videos from lesser known artists, and in their own words, 'Don't play the same American stuff over and over again' (compare MTV Base).

That said the channel does play US hip hop, rap and R'n'B videos. The channels main focus is Grime and UK hip hop.

Channel U is respected as a more 'street' channel compared to its mainstream counterparts such as MTV. Many artists have expressed their loyalty to the channel in their lyrics for example in Lady Sovereign's 9 to 5, "channel who? oh channel U, the ones who made me huge!". Other artists to comment on Channel U include Kano, Lethal Bizzle, Sway, Genesis Elijah and Jammer. In October 2005 the first ever annual channel U awards were held in London with live performances from its underground playlist.

Channel U received over a million viewers in its first month after launch. Considering being part of a very small company it has 3 times more discussion than the entire MTV Network.

In June 2005, the channel was fined £18,000 by Ofcom for a number of offences, including the broadcasting of inappropriate material, using premium rate telephone services in programmes, and failing to ensure a clear distinction between programmes and advertisements.[2]

Channel U also has a sister channel called 'Fizz,' which plays music from all genres, and has a heavy interactive texting element.

Before he joined MTV to host the British version of Pimp My Ride, Tim Westwood had a show on Channel U, along with his other media activity.

In Late October 2006, a few dark secrets of Channel U was exposed via the Channel U Exposed Website. It was mainly spread throughout websites of UK interest: myspace [3] [4] [5], press release websites [6] [7], forums [8] [9] [10][11] [12] and Channel U's Forums [13]. It explained about how the mp3 agreement form could deceive artists and how they were used to create money where artists would go in debt and turn to crime like armed robbery [14] [15]. Despite the huge word of mouth promotion it received, many grime and UK Hip Hop fans and artists who regulary watch Channel U have ignored such exposure, and discarded it as being fake.