Men & Motors - Independent Television - ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV, Men & Motors, ITV HD

Men & Motors
Men & Motors is a men's lifestyle television channel in the UK. It is the last remaining station operated by Granada Sky Broadcasting, a joint venture set up by Granada Television (now part of ITV plc) and British Sky Broadcasting in 1996. Although ITV plc is now the sole owner of GSB, Sky will receive 49.5 per cent of any proceeds (net of liabilities) if Men & Motors is sold. ITV confirmed in September 2007, that it plans to dispose of Men & Motors. The motoring-focused channel, which is available on Sky and digital cable, has been classed as a non-core asset by ITV plc and will be sold along with other resources including Screenvision US and MUTV.

Carriage of Men & Motors
From its launch, Men & Motors was only available with subscription television services. Men & Motors was part of the original line-up (as a "primary channel") for ONdigital, a Digital terrestrial television service part-owned by Granada. When ONdigital closed, Men & Motors left DTT and became available only through satellite and cable. Many years after the closure of ONdigital, ITV (the company formed by the merger of Carlton Television and Granada) successfully bid for a slot on digital terrestrial (DTT) multiplex D. It was announced that Men & Motors would be launched on Freeview on May 2, 2005. To coincide with this launch, the channel was re-vamped, and its late night, risqué adult content was replaced by archive drama, comedy and documentaries. The channel also dropped its Videoguard encryption on Sky Digital on 1 July 2005, switching to Free-to-air status.
ITV's plans to launch a channel aimed at men (the target audience of Men & Motors) were considered by many to be the end for Men & Motors. It seemed logical that Men & Motors would simply "become" ITV4, with much of the channel's programming simply being shown under the ITV brand. With capacity on the Freeview platform limited, and to avoid being in competition for the same genre of viewers, this seemed the inevitable conclusion.
However, available to a much wider audience, Men & Motors enjoyed a (slightly unexpectedly) sharp increase in viewing figures. ITV were faced with the conundrum of replacing a channel with a well-known brand and enjoying a new popularity with a new, seemingly identical channel. ITV4 instead replaced the ITV News Channel on Freeview (between its broadcasting hours of 18:00 to 06:00), with Men & Motors still available on its own 24-hour slot. The News channel closed soon after, due to major competition from Sky News and BBC News 24 and heavy financial losses.
After less than a year on Freeview, Men & Motors has now been replaced. At 06:00 BST on 12 April 2006, Men & Motors ceased transmissions on digital terrestrial television. This was to allow ITV to launch the "participation television" channel, ITV Play, which has now been closed down itself. With limited bandwidth on the platform, and a desire to keep the entire ITV "family" (i.e. all channels carrying the ITV brand) on the free platform, Men & Motors is now only available on satellite and cable television. Recently, adult films and programmes have returned to the schedules on Thursday evenings. Examples of such programming include Cor Blimey and Personal Services. Also, the risqué programmes eradicated in the previous schedule (pre-ITV4) have returned late at night, alongside old dramas, etc.