Film4

Film4 is a free British digital television channel, owned and operated by Channel 4, which screens generally less mainstream films.

Programming
Unlike its rivals, Film4 does not focus on broadcasting blockbusters. Instead, it focusses aims for a more niche and highbrow market by showing many a mixture of old and new independent, arthouse, British, foreign language and specialist cinema, along with some critically-acclaimed Hollywood films. The channel frequently has themed nights or seasons or where a number of films centred around one genre, director or actor are shown. As Channel 4 also owns a film production company, Film4 Productions, it often shows many of its products.

Wherever possible, films are always shown uncut and in widescreen.

History
Film4 was originally known as FilmFour and became Channel 4's second channel (after Channel 4 itself) when it launched on November 1 1998. It was a subscription-only satellite and cable and cost £5.99 a month (which eventually rose to up to £7 a month). The launch night, which was also broadcast on Channel 4, was hosted by Johnny Vaughan and the first film to be shown was What's Eating Gilbert Grape?.

The subscription service ended on July 19 2006 and the channel re-launched (under the slightly modified name of Film4) as a free service on July 23. When the channel became free, it also launched on Freeview for the first time. Due to the change, the channel's availability incresed from 300,000 to 18 million households. It also changed its broadcasting hours from 1500-0300 and commercial breaks were included during films for the first time. The first film to be shown under the new format was Lost in Translation.

Sister channels
In addition to the main channel, Film4 also operates a one-hour-timeshifted variant, Film4+1 on satellite and cable only.

Previously, two other FilmFour channels, FilmFour World and FilmFour Extreme, were broadcast alongside FilmFour. These were discontinued in 2003 and replaced by another channel, FilmFour Weekly, which screened four films across the week at the same time each day to make it easier to catch a film at least once. FilmFour Weekly ceased broadcasting on July 19 2006 when the subscription service ended.

Channel 4 also operates two other free digital channels: E4 and More4.