The Hits is a free-to-air
music channel owned by
EMAP, showing a mix of
pop and other genres of music. The channel broadcasts on the
British Digital terrestrial television service
Freeview on channel 18. The channel originally shown
music videos 24 hours a day with viewers phoning in to request songs, although some of the day is now filled with programming, such as theory in to how music videos are made and the everyday life of the popular UK group
McFly. The channel's current Freeview rival is
TMF UK, a subsidiary of the
MTV group of stations.
It is also shown on Sky Digital, channel 458, but is hard encrypted, so that only Sky subscribers can view it. This situtation is expected to change when EMAP's current satelite carriage contract expires.
