TCC

TCC is British children's television network owned by Flextech. The channel broadcasts animated and live-action programmings for children.

History[]

TCC was launched in 1984 as The Children's Channel, almost exclusively to cable households owing to the low proliferation of domestic satellite dishes in the UK and Europe at the time, and originally operated by Starstream who were backed by British Telecom, DC Thomson, Thames Television and Thorn EMI.

The channel shared its slot with The Entertainment Network, before sharing with Mirrorvision. In 1986, it started broadcasting on satellite from 0500 for 10 hours. In January 1987, Central Independent Television acquired a 22% stake in Starstream, within days of buying FilmFair, allowing the channel to add new programming including Paddington Bear.

On March 1989, the channel started airing free-to-air on Astra 1A (owned by SES S.A. at the time, now a communications satellite operator), airing between 05:00 and 10:00 on weekdays and between 05:00 and 12:00 on weekends, time-sharing with Lifestyle. Following the launch of the Astra 1B-satellite in 1991, the channel expanded to broadcast until 5pm each day, time-sharing with JSTV. In 1990, Flextech acquired its first stake in the company, beating United Artists Cable International to gain a stake. Within a year, United bought its own stake in The Children's Channel and won the management contract to run it. In autumn of 1993, Flextech held talks with Tele-Communications (TCI) and acquired TCI's European programming business in exchange for shares, giving TCI a 50%-60% stake in the enlarged Flextech group. The deal was completed which resulted in Flextech increasing its stake from 50.1% to 75%.

In 1992, the channel launched an evening block showing programming of greater interest to older children and teenagers. The segment, called simply TCC, aired from 5pm to 7pm, and featured a number of home-produced programmes, such as CDQ ("compact disc quiz") and TVFM, as well as US imports including Saved By The Bell. During the day, the channel, by then still branded as The Children's Channel, continued targeting younger children, and a large amount of its programming output was still archive animated series from the 1980s. As time went on, the TCC block extended its hours, initially starting half an hour earlier at 4.30pm, until the focus on teen programmes eventually became more prominent across the whole channel, which became known as TCC all day long.

In 1993, it cut back its air hours to 06:00-17:00, allowing newly launched sister channel The Family Channel to share its channel space with both channels now a subscription service via the Sky Multichannels package. Two years later, the channel introduced programmes for toddlers and preschoolers called Tiny TCC.

By June 1995, Flextech completed its acquisition of TCC when it acquired the remaining 25.1% stake in Starstream, (parent firm of TCC, from DC Thomson, Thames Television and Richard Wolfe) for £15m.

During the summer of 1996, Flextech were in talks with Fox/News Corp to sell of a 50% stake in the channel; unfortunately, extremely lengthy negotiations made it impossible to secure a deal. Flextech tried to undertake negotiations to secure a different form of investment in TCC, but decided to refocus on the teen and youth markets instead. In turn, on 3 February 1997, all the programmes targeting older children (mainly teenagers) which TCC was by then airing were split off into their own separate television channel called Trouble with TCC reverted to the original name of The Children's Channel and continuing to screen programmes for younger children, running side by side with Trouble for nearly a year, before eventually closing down British and Irish operations both unexpectedly and silently on 3 April 1998 at 17:00 for unknown reasons. Upon the closure of TCC UK, the cable operator Cable & Wireless carried the TCC Nordic feed for a few months due to the company’s anger at the closure of TCC at such short notice, while Trouble started targeting teenagers and young adults, thus fully replacing TCC after the latter closed down.

However, due to a pre-agreed contract signed some years before to air the channel in Scandinavia until October 2000, Flextech created a commercial-free version of TCC known as TCC Nordic to fulfil this requirement to air until October 2000 as arranged before finally ceasing transmission. As this service was only fulfilling a contractual requirement, it was totally automated and showed exactly the same four weeks of programming (including show trailers) on a constant loop.

Programmings[]

The Adventures of Black Beauty
The Amazing Adventures of Morph
Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
The Adventures of Crumbcake
The Adventures of Spot
The Adventures of T-Rex
Astro Farm
Around the World in 80 Seconds
Art Attack
The Baby-Sitters Club
Batman
BattleTech: The Animated Series
Bad Level 10
Bananaman
Beakman's World
The Beano's Dennis the Menace and Gnasher Show
Boogies Diner
Beverly Hills Teens
The Big Dish
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures
Blast
Blinky Bill
The Blunders
Bobobobs
The Bots Master
Boy Dominic
Bravestarr
Bojan the Bear
Bucky O'Hare
By Way of the Stars
Byker Grove
The Blunders
Bright Sparks
C.O.P.S.
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
California Dreams
California Raisins
Captain N: The Game Master
Cartoon Classics
The Castle of Adventure
The Chestnut Soldier
Clémentine
The Clifton House Mystery
Clutz
Cool Cartoons
Cool McCool
The Colours Of World
Cococinel
Casper and Friends
Connect 4
Count Duckula
Crack The Code
CurioCity
Cybernet
Danger Mouse
Defenders of the Earth
Degrassi Junior High
Dennis the Menace (UK version)
Denver, the Last Dinosaur
Derrou
Derrou Juniors
Derrou Tales
Dish of the Day
Diplodos
Dog City
The Dreamstone
Dino Babies
Dino-Riders
Dungeons and Dragons
Dr. Snuggles
Dynamo Duck
Earthworks
Earthworm Jim
Eek! The Cat
Emlyn's Moon
Ernest the Vampire
Escape from Jupiter
Fame
Fifteen
The Finder
The Fantastic Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor
The Flockton Flyer
Floradora
Galaxy High
Garfield and Friends
The Get Along Gang
Gigantor
The Girl From Tomorrow
Tomorrow's End
Gravedale High
The Greedysaurus Gang
The Guys Next Door
Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left
Hang Time
Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child
The Happy Prince
Heartbreak High
Heathcliff
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Henry's Cat
Hotshots
How Things Work
Inspector Gadget
Interbang
Into the Labyrinth
Iznogoud
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
Jem
Jack in a Box
King Koopa's Kool Kartoons
Kissyfur
The Legend of Prince Valiant
The Littles
Little Brrm
Lotta
Ludwig
M.A.S.K.
Madison
Magic Corner
Make Music Fun
Mr. Bogus
Manu
The Marvel Superheroes
Madeline
Michael Valiant
Molly
Mr Majeika
Ocean Odyssey
Okavango
Once Upon a Time... Space
Oscar's Orchestra
Pinwheel
Paddington Bear
Picture Pages
Pingu
The Pink Panther
Pugwall
Pugwall's Summer
Quick & Flupke
The Puzzle Place
Rub-a-Dub-Dub
Rainbow Brite
Rambo: The Force of Freedom
Ready or Not
The Real Ghostbusters
Ring Raiders
Road to Avonlea
Rocky Hollow
Robinson Sucroe
Robotech
Round the Bend
Round the Twist
Roustabout
Rude Dog and the Dweebs
Runaway Bay
Saved by the Bell
See How They Grow
Sesame Street
Stories Without Words
Seven Little Australians
Shadow of the Stone
Shadows
Sharky and George
She-Ra: Princess of Power
Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings
Skeleton Warriors
The Smoggies
The Snow Spider
Spirou
Street Sharks
Stunt Dawgs
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
The Super Mario Challenge
Super Mario World
Superted
Swamp Thing
Swans Crossing
Sylvanian Families
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teen Wolf
Telebugs
The Telecat Show
Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends
The Tick
Tiny and Crew
Towser
Toxic Crusaders
The Transformers
The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat
The New Adventures of Gigantor
The New Adventures of He-Man
The New Archies
Ulysses 31
Under the Mountain
Under the Umbrella Tree
Victor & Maria
Voltron: Defender of the Universe
What-a-Mess
Where's Wally?
Widget
Wil Cwac Cwac
The Winners
Wisdom of the Gnomes
The Witches and the Grinnygog
Worzel Gummidge
Worzel Gummidge Down Under
Wowser
Wuzzles
You Can't Do That on Television
Zazoo U

Jack in the Box/Tiny TCC[]

Babar
Barney & Friends
Busy Buses
Bump
Bod
Button Moon
Care Bears
Charlie Brown Specials
Chorlton and the Wheelies
Christopher Crocodile
Clangers
Cockleshell Bay
Creepy Crawlers
Crystal Tipps and Alistair
Dappledown Farm
Edward and Friends
The Fruitties
The Forgotten Toys
The Flumps
Gran
Henry's Cat
The Herbs
James the Cat
Johnson and Friends
Kitty Cats
The Little Green Man
Morph
Mr Benn
Mr. Men
Noddy
Old Bear Stories
Ovide and the Gang
Philbert Frog
Papa Beaver's Storytime
Phillips
Pob's Programme
Potsworth & Co.
Professor Bubble
Professor Iris
Puppydog Tales
Rosie and Jim
The Shoe People
Special Sports
Stoppit and Tidyup
Strawberry Shortcake
Topsy and Tim
The Wind in the Willows
The Wombles

Logos[]

Living TV Group
Channels were acquired from Sky on 2011

Former channels