U&Eden
U&Eden is a British free-to-air television channel owned by UKTV, and broadcasts factual entertainment and drama programming. It originally launched on 8 March 2004 and relaunched in its current format on 27 January 2009. Eden was a pay television channel until 2024.
On 29 November 2023, UKTV announced its intention to launch 'U' – a new masterbrand that will unite its family channels and its streaming. Eden rebranded to U&Eden on 16 October 2024.
Launched on 16 July 2024, UKTV's streaming service UKTV Play became U; and its family of free-to-air channel adopted the "U&..." branding: U&Dave, U&Drama, U&W, and U&Yesterday.
On 16 August 2024, Ofcom gave UKTV a new broadcasting licence for U&Eden to become a free-to-air channel. U&Eden launched on Freeview on 16 October, replacing U&Yesterday+1.
Gold and Alibi rebranded to U&Gold and U&Alibi on 7 November 2024.
History
The UKTV channels were all rebranded on 8 March 2004. At the same time, Eden was launched as UKTV Documentary, showing factual documentaries, mainly from the BBC archives, on a variety of subjects if not covered by another channel in the UKTV network, such as Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. Much of this programming had come from the former UKTV channel UK Horizons, which had closed down the day before and which the channel, and spun off a sister channel called UKTV People. UKTV Documentary occupied the same broadcasting slot as UK Horizons.On 9 October 2008, UKTV announced plans to rebrand UKTV Documentary and UKTV People in early 2009. The news came just two days after UKTV's entertainment channels were rebranded to Watch, Gold and Alibi. They announced that UKTV Documentary would be rebranded as Eden and this rebrand took place on 26 January 2009. As part of the rebrand, the channels programming output changed from all documentaries to primarily documentaries focusing on the natural environment. All other documentaries were transferred to UKTV History or UKTV People, depending on their subject matter.
In August 2024, it was reported that Eden had secured a licence to broadcast on Freeview, following the secure of a DTPS licence by Ofcom.
Eden was rebranded as U&Eden and launched on Freeview, Freesat and Freely on 16 October 2024. The channel effectively became free-to-air on 7 October 2024, when its encryption was dropped on satellite in preparation for its addition to Freesat.
Subsidiary channels
U&Eden +1
From launch, the channel has had a timeshift service, called Eden +1 and UKTV Documentary +1 before it. The service ran on Sky and Virgin Media and broadcast the channels schedule one hour later than usual. The timeshift was removed from Virgin Media in October 2008 to allow bandwidth for new channel Watch, however the timeshift service was restored on 7 October 2011.U&Eden HD
Eden HD launched on 4 October 2010 on Sky channel 559, running a high-definition simulcast of the main channel. As part of Virgin Media's deal to sell its share of UKTV, all five of UKTV's HD channels were added to Virgin's cable television service by 2012. Eden HD was added to Virgin Media on 7 October 2011. On 3 October 2016, Eden HD was added to BT. On 2 October 2017, Eden HD was removed from the Sky lineup and replaced with Gold HD.On-air identity
The UKTV Documentary identity focused around scenes from the landscape of Britain. The ident would first feature a close up shot, for example of a person or a stone, before pulling back to reveal the bigger picture: such as a busy rail station or a stone circle. This was then overlaid with the UKTV Documentary logo, consisting of the UKTV logo on top, and an upper case 'DOCUMENTARY' tag below, aligned to the left of the screen. Alongside the idents, the channel had a digital on-screen graphic of the same design and also featured a generic UKTV design for all promotions for the channel. The channels house colour was a blue, similar in shade to Azure, and would feature in numerous changing shades on the end boards of promotions.The 2009–2024 Eden identity featured explorers in an unknown environment, such as the deep jungle or the Antarctic, before coming across a landscape, which the logo then forms onto.
The 2024 identity films introduced in the rebrand to U&Eden utilise aerial photography, similarly to those of Sky Mix.
Programming
The programming used on the original pay-TV Eden channel was mostly from the BBC archives, and so was therefore edited to fit the time slot: an original broadcast for an hour-long programme on the BBC might be as much as 58 minutes long, while the same programme here might be 42 minutes long without the commercials. Eden was renowned for showing blue-chip natural history but then moved into more scientific programmes, while keeping the blue-chip, cinematic identity. Eden has also produced its own exclusive programming, with the most recent series David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities, produced by Humble Bee Films, broadcasting from January 2013.Programmes on U&Eden
From January 2024, Eden began to show a wider range of programming and now airs a range of reality, gameshows, drama and history programming from U&W, U&Drama, U&Dave and U&Yesterday, and since early 2025, nature programming is no longer aired on the channel but by the start of 2026 some natural history programming had returned.U&Eden programming
U&Eden launched as a rebranded free-to-air service on Freeview on, with its programmes, usually scheduled in multi-episode blocks, now including:- Abandoned Engineering
- Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown
- The Architecture the Railways BuiltBargain HuntThe BillCampionCelebrity MastermindCutting ItDavid Attenborough's Natural CuriositiesDoctor WhoDoctor Who: Terror of the AutonsDoctor Who: The Claws of AxosDoctor Who: The MutantsDr Christian: 12 Hours to Cure Your StreetExpedition with Steve BackshallHornby: A Model WorldImpossible EngineeringInside the AmbulanceThe MissingMistressesThe Onedin LineParkinsonPointlessSecret ArmySorry!Steam Train BritainThe Two RonniesTop of the Pops
- ''Warbird Workshop''