23 Facts About BBC Three

1.

BBC Three is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC.

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2.

BBC Three is the BBC's youth-orientated television channel, its remit to provide "innovative programming" to a target audience of viewers between 16 and 34 years old, leveraging technology as well as new talent.

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3.

On 12 May 2011, BBC Three was added to the Sky EPG in the Republic of Ireland on channel 229.

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4.

Duration of the 2012 Summer Olympics, BBC Three increased its broadcasting hours to 24 hours to provide extra coverage of Olympic events.

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5.

Broadcast hours were extended again for the 2014 Commonwealth Games with BBC Three broadcasting from 9:00 am to 4:00 am for the duration of the games.

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6.

On 5 March 2014, Hall announced a proposal to convert BBC Three, discontinuing it as an "open" television service and turn it into an over-the-top Internet television service with a smaller programming budget and a focus on short-form productions.

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7.

The "Save BBC Three'" campaign pointed out this was a contradiction to what the BBC said about BBC Three.

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8.

The BBC Three Trust began a 28-day public consultation regarding the plans on 20 January 2015 and it ended with a protest outside Broadcasting House.

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9.

BBC Three ended regular programming during the early morning of 16 February 2016.

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10.

On 5 January 2022, CBBC returned to its pre-2016 hours and BBC Three began test broadcasts on 10 January 2022 ahead of its relaunch on 1 February 2022.

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11.

On 8 September 2022, the BBC Three decided to scrap all programming on the channel to preserve the bandwidth for BBC Three News's breaking news coverage of Elizabeth II.

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12.

High-definition version of BBC Three launched on 10 December 2013 along with high-definition versions of BBC Four, BBC News, CBBC and CBeebies.

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13.

Remit of BBC Three is to bring younger audiences to high quality public service broadcasting through a mixed-genre schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent.

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14.

In 2005, BBC Three commissioned the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential, which was shown immediately after episodes of the new series of Doctor Who had been screened on BBC One.

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15.

In October 2005, it was announced that BBC Three had commissioned a spin-off drama series from Doctor Who, Torchwood, designed as a post-watershed science fiction drama for a more adult audience.

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16.

In 2010, BBC Three began airing episodes of the fifth series of BBC drama series Waterloo Road after they had aired on BBC One as part of its 'catch-up' programming.

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17.

From January 2015, BBC Three aired the remaining episodes of Waterloo Road before being repeated on BBC One later the same day.

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18.

However, the BBC Three discontinued the bulletin in 2005, following a recommendation made in the 2004 Barwise Report, which found that the channel's target audience sought news from elsewhere.

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19.

BBC Three Online provided a number of downloads and activities based on the channel's identity, these included "BlobMate", screensavers, wallpapers and games such as BlobLander and BlobBert.

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20.

In October 2013, BBC Three introduced a new series of idents with a theme of "discovery".

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21.

In total BBC Three has won 7 BAFTA awards, 5 British Comedy Awards, 15 Royal Television Society Awards and 5 Rose d'Or Awards since the channel was launched in February 2003.

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22.

In July 2010 a UK music magazine printed a letter from the pressure group Friends of Radio 3 that criticised BBC Three for having 'comedies, game shows, films and documentaries, but no arts programming at all'.

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23.

Two months later the same correspondent wrote in to inform readers that the BBC Three had refused his 'Freedom of Information' request concerning the titles of the programmes used in calculating the '54 hours' total.

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