British Universities Film & Video Council

moving image and sound, knowledge and access

TV Listings – a history

Learn about the history of TV programme information and discover how Channel 4’s Press Information Packs helped change the listings landscape.

History of C4 PIPs

Undoubtedly Channel 4’s Press Information Packs – comprehensive in content and widely circulated to the national and regional press – played a part in encouraging the free flow of listings information. And, until now, this has remained a largely unchronicled aspect of the Channel 4 story…

TV Listings

Although today the battle over TV listings may look like a storm in a teacup, it actually raised important issues – very relevant to the Internet era – about whether TV listings were the exclusive intellectual property of the broadcasters, or whether the broadcasters were obligated to licence this intellectual property, since the data belonged to the free press.