is a
Free-to-air entertainment
Television channel in the
United Kingdom owned by
ITV Plc . It was launched on
7 December 1998 , and is available on
Digital Television , via satellite (free-to-air on
Sky Digital platform as of
1 November 2005 ), cable, or terrestrial (
Freeview ) media. It is also available through analogue cable television. It airs daily from 9.25am following the closedown of
GMTV2 on the same frequency.
The channel mainly shows episodes of
ITV1 programming at a later time (such as the
Soap Opera ''
Coronation Street ''), imported American programming such as ''
Judge Judy '' and extended coverage of
Reality Television programmes such as ''
The X Factor ''. However, some original programming has been commissioned for the channel.
In June
2004 ITV announced that they were going to double the channel's programme budget, and would add more US series and movies.
The channel has an
On-screen Logo at all times during its programming output, which is not removed during advertisement breaks. Some viewers think that this makes the channel appear cheap and down-market.
was also commonly used to refer to a proposed fourth television channel for the United Kingdom from the mid- (launched
1936 ), ITV (launched
1955 ) and
BBC2 (launched
1964 ). It therefore seemed logical to many that the licence for a fourth channel should be awarded to ITV. Some television sets produced during this period labelled the button for the fourth channel "ITV2". In the event, the fourth channel was actually launched in
1982 as
Channel 4 in
England ,
Scotland and
Northern Ireland , and
S4C in
Wales .
