The home of witty banter (The Dave Channel)

Member Name: aylawarner

Product:	The Dave Channel
Date:	07/08/09 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some top notch programmes

Disadvantages: Some not so great programmes, aimed more towards guys

Dave is a UK television channel owned by UKTV which can be found on Freeview channel 19 or Sky 111. It is a fairly new channel having only been launched in 2007 taking over from the original UK Gold Classics. According to UKTV, the name of the channel was chosen because "everybody knows a bloke called Dave". This statement pretty much sums up the channel being very simple, British and comical.

I'm not a huge fan of the channel and prefer to stick to my favourite American shows on E4 but my husband watches Dave a fair bit as he enjoys British shows and old classics more than I do. When the channel first became popular I did think it was a pretty stupid one what with a silly name like Dave, but there are a fair few good shows on here and I now often find myself switching over to channel 19 to see if there's anything good on worth passing the time.

The type of shows on Dave are mainly based around adventure, comedy and documentaries with most of the shows being repeats from the BBC. The only shows which I really watch, and which are also probably the most popular shows, are Top Gear and Dragon's Den. Other shows include:

~ Mock The Week
~ Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps
~ Never Mind the Buzzcocks
~ QI
~ Ray Mears
~ Trawlermen
~ Airport
~ Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends
~ Little Britian
~ The Catherine Tate Show
~ Live at the Apollo
~ Red Dwarf
~ The Mighty Boosh
~ Whose Line Is It Anyway?
~ Have I Got News For You
~ A Question of Sport
~ Harry Enfield

Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends is also a great programme as well as a range of other comedy but I think the majority of the channel is probably aimed at British men having a lot of sport shows and documentaries. I feel that the name of the channel and the shows it outputs portray it as a typical British bloke and I think these sorts of men are probably the target audience although there are a variety of other shows thrown in to please others not in this category. Because there aren't a huge range of shows on Dave, this does mean that most days only around 3 shows will be shown throughout the entire day with one show after another for a few hours. A range of classic and older shows are also available, including Red Dwarf, which I'm sure many people are fans of.

The channel is great to will away the time if you're bored and have got nothing better to do, but other than that, I don't really watch it too much. As I said, it's probably better for the guys to watch but there are a few select programmes for all to enjoy.

Summary: For typical British blokes with names like Dave