N-DUBZ TO ESTELLE (Channel U)

Member Name: nathaninnit

Product:	Channel U
Date:	01/04/08 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very specialist channel, either love it or hate it

Disadvantages: Low-budget

Hip hop fans have their MTV Base and Kiss. Rock fans have their KERRANG! and Scuzz. But I would have to say that there is no other channel out there quite like Channel U, which specialises in British based music and if you ever see an American track on the channel you know there must be something quite special about it. Channel U, just like many of the music channels out there, thrives on people phoning in with the three digit codes of the music video they want to see, what sort of music is on Channel U though? Well most of it is underground music that you will not find on anyother channel, and 'grime'.
If you want to check the channel out on Sky Digital you can find it under 360 at the time of writing, but be warned that the channel is not for everyone. You are probably thinking of the channel being along the lines of just showing Dizzee Rascal and Kano videos one after the other, but whilst they are two artists heavily featured you will also find much smaller artists and many of them just have one hit wonders and never appear on the channel again. You can tell how independant many of the music videos are by their presentation, and some are laughable. In fact, if you really don't like the style of music Channel U features you will probably find yourslef laughing every second that you watch it.

So what does the U in Channel U stand for? Well it could probably be many things; UK, Underground, or just U - as in your channel. Channel U has offered competitions in the past for independant artists to get their videos on the channel on the basis of the best one wins, but of course that's not the only way they try and make their money.. Channel U also has competitions for things such as the PS3 for its viewers to enter, and rather embarrassingly I remember this commercial for said competition actually featured a picture of the PS3 - but it had the boomerang controller pictured (which was soon replaced by the traditional one). I've got to say that I would never enter a competition when the channel doesn't even know what its prize looks like, and I would be very surprised to hear if anyone won that.
Now and again when you turn on Channel U you will also find the option to text in along the bottom of the screen, usually for some sort of ridiculous price like £1 and you also have the option of sending pictures in. This is very similar to that of Channel U's sister channel, Fizz, which almost always has the texting in option. I'm guessing channels make quite a bit of money from this, because there are a fair few, dare I say 'saddos', that do text in.

Like most of the music channels around, Channel U doesn't really have any set programmes, and right now if you turned on Channel U you could watch 'Streetz, Grime & Life', which I'm not sure how different it is to some of their other hours with a different name. Channel U does offer a chart rundown, and this is a mixture of the types of music on the channel. I would say that the presentation of the channel is very focused on its audiance, and sometimes that comes off in a 'fake' way, but as long as the name of each song is coming up with the video I cannot complain with the way the channel is presented as that is the main thing.
I would say that the breakthrough artist of Channel U would have to be N-Dubz, a group made up of two males and a female, because after they blew up on Channel U they have now made more mainstream appearances and have quite the following. I guess it's all just a matter of opinion really. There is an accompanying website, and even Channel U albums, so if you like hearing people 'spittin their lyrics' then you should give this channel a try.

Summary: Mix of English and American.