Freeview is the collection of free-to-air services on the digital terrestrial television platform in the United Kingdom. The service was launched at 5am on 30 October 2002 and is jointly operated by its five equal shareholders – BBC, ITV, Channel 4, BSkyB and transmitter operator Arqiva.

2002 Following the collapse of ITV Digital, the Independent Television Commission re-advertised the licenses for the three multiplexes (MUX B, C and D) that had been used by ITV Digital. On 16 August 2002 the licenses were granted to members of the Freeview consortium, with BBC getting multiplex B and Crown Castle getting multiplexes C and D.

Although all pay channels had been closed down on ITV Digital, many free-to-air channels continued broadcasting, including the five analogue channels, the digital BBC channels, ITV2, the ITN News Channel, S4C2, TV Travel Shop and QVC.

Freeview launched on 30 October 2002 at 5am. Sky Travel, UK History, Sky News, Sky Sports News, The Hits and TMF were available on the launch, however many channels originally available have since been removed. BBC Four and the interactive BBC streams were moved to multiplex B. Under the initial plans, the two multiplexes operated by Crown Castle would carry eight channels altogether.

2003 In February 2003, BBC Three replaced BBC Choice, which since February the previous year had no longer contained children's programming, as the job was fulfilled by the CBBC and CBeebies channels.

The seventh stream became shared by UK Bright Ideas and Ftn which launched in January 2003. The eighth stream was left unused until April 2004 when the shopping channel Ideal World launched on Freeview. There are now 13 streams carried by the two multiplexes, with Multiplex C carrying 5 streams, and Multiplex D carrying 8.

2004 Pay television returned to the terrestrial platform in March 2004 when Top Up TV launched. The BBC and Crown Castle multiplexes were at the time not allowed to broadcast pay channels, so the new service broadcast on multiplex A and Channel 4's half of multiplex 2. On June 14, 2004, Cartoon Network launched onto Freeview. The autumn of 2004 saw the launch of two new free-to-air entertainment channels; ABC1 in September and ITV3 in November. ITV3 was the replacement for Plus on platforms other than Freeview.

2005

In early 2005, two new channel streams became available on the two Crown Castle multiplexes. ITV and Channel 4 won one stream each. ITV used their channel to broadcast Men & Motors. Channel 4's entertainment channel E4 had up until this time been broadcast as part of the Top Up TV package, and at this time it was decided that E4 would be made free-to-air, as well as being available on Freeview along with E4 +1 which was launched at the same time in the newly acquired stream. They also launched a 24-hour live stream of the Big Brother house, which was later replaced by quiz channel Quiz Call.

In the autumn of 2005 Channel 4 and ITV joined the Freeview consortium. They also launched two new channels, More4 and ITV4, respectively. Sky replaced Sky Travel with the broader entertainment channel Sky Three.

Another stream became available on the Crown Castle multiplexes. Channel 4 won the bidding for this stream, which reportedly reached £12 million per year. The space was initially used to broadcast More4 +1.

The ITV News Channel had seen its broadcasting hours reduced to daytime after the launch of ITV4. It stopped broadcasting on 23 December 2005 at 6pm and the space was taken over by CITV in March 2006.

Toonami was launched on Freeview on December 7, 2005.

2006

ITV Play was launched in April 2006, and Men & Motors was taken off Freeview to make way for this to happen. FilmFour ceased its subscription service in mid-2006. Also, at the same time, it launched on Freeview and changed its name on all platforms to Film4, and introduced commercials during films for the first time. It also reduced its broadcasting hours to 12:45 – 08:45 so National Lottery Extra and Gems TV could launch. On Freeview, it replaced More4 +1, although the space was briefly used for Big Brother coverage before it was launched on Freeview.

Five had bought a stake in the company behind the Top Up TV service, and in the autumn of 2006 it was restructured into a video on demand service. This made space for Five to launch two new channels in October, which were Five Life and Five US (now known as 5star and 5 USA respectively).

Quiz Call was sold in November 2006, however because the deal did not include the Freeview slot it meant it had to close down. The space was then used by Film4 +1.

2007 ITV Play stopped programming in the early hours of 6 March 2007. Originally, it was to return later in March, but it was decided it would close down for good, with it being removed from the EPG on 16 March 2007. The slot got reused for a one-hour timeshift of ITV2, ITV2 +1, shortly afterwards.

Toonami was renamed Cartoon Network Too in June 2007.

Channel 4 replaced Film4 +1 with Channel 4 +1 in August 2007.

Disney decided to leave Freeview and unexpectedly closed down ABC1 shortly after midday on 26 September 2007, days before it was supposed to close down on .

Ftn was replaced by Virgin1, UKTV Bright Ideas was closed down, UKTV History had its broadcasting hours restricted to daytime and UKTV G2 was launched on Freeview under the new name Dave.

Additionally, in December 2007, the Jewellery Channel was made available on Freeview on channel44.

2008 CITV eventually moved into ABC1's old space, allowing ITV4 to broadcast 24/7. Because the slot that CITV moved into would interfere with S4C if available in Wales, it means that CITV can now only be received using Freeview in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. CITV continues to be available in Wales on all other platforms.

The Jewellery Channel was removed in May 2008 because the broadcast license was not renewed, and was replaced by a second stream of Gems TV, which was referred to inside the EPG as "GEMSTV1".

The Hits was renamed 4Music in August 2008.

2009

In January 2009, price-drop tv was replaced by Quest, gambling service Super Casino launched in new space on the SDN multiplex, Turner channel Nuts TV was closed and replaced with four-hours of news channel CNN International, and Arqiva announced that their latest new channel slot had been sold to UKTV who now use it to broadcast Dave ja vu (originally Dave +1, and is a one-hour timeshift of Dave). Then, Russia Today TV announced that they were going to broadcast for a small amount of time during the day, timesharing with Dave +1. Also, January saw NETPLAY TV launch on channel 49, timesharing with Super Casino on 48. This shows Rocks&Co and various JML presentations throughout the day. Finally, Directgov launched on channel 106.

Quest, was due to launch on Channel 47 on 14 May. Following the broadcast of a preview loop from 7am, the channel launch was suspended at 10am by its channel owners, who stated that the channel would be delayed until later in the year due "to a number of commercial factors". The channel successfully launched on 30 September 2009.

After Quest was launched, Film4 broadcast hours were extended to 9:45am to 8:45am (although films were only broadcast between 11am and around 4am), as Gems TV changed its schedule to broadcast during Quest's downtime (between 1am and 11am). Film4 now, instead of closing down in downtime hours, instead broadcasts teleshopping or an animated caption stating it will return at 11am. Around the same time, Gems TV ceased its second stream and was replaced by extended coverage of CNN.

On 20 May Virgin1 went 24 hours on Freeview, with a timeshifted version of the channel on channel 35 between 6pm and 6am. However, it was, later in the year, reduced back to 9am to 7pm in Wales and to 7am to 3am for the rest of the UK, allowing Tease Me TV to launch.

On 15 July 2009, quiz channel Big Deal launched on channel 37 between 10pm and 5am, timesharing with Create and Craft and Russia Today.

Freeview underwent a major multiplex re-configuration on 30 September 2009, which required all Freeview users to retune. This cleared multiplex B (aka PSB3 aka BBCB) to run in DVB-T2 mode, and moved all BBC television and radio services to multiplex PSB1 (BBCA) in post-DSO areas. Five moved to multiplex 2/PSB2/D3+4, swapping with ITV3 which ended up on multiplex A/COM4/SDN. ITV4 moved to Multiplex D/COM6 swapping with ITV2 +1, which ended up on Multiplex 2/PSB2 (in ITV plc areas ITV2 +1 moved to LCN 33 in anticipation that it would become ITV1 +1).[Freeview – Remember to Retune http://www.freeview.co.uk/freeview/Press/Freeview-launches-Remember-to-Retune-campaign ] 18 million households were required to retune their television sets on or after midday on 30 September. The changes lead to several hundred complaints from people who had lost channels as a result of retuning their equipment.

To make room for the HD channels, the number of interactive BBC streams was reduced from 4 to 2 in pre-DSO areas and 1 in post-DSO areas, and the Community Channel became inaccessible to post-DSO areas. However, as the Community Channel later switched multiplexes from B to C, it was restored to post-DSO areas.

Freeview HD started broadcasting on 2 December 2009, when BBC HD and ITV HD started transmission to parts of the country.

2010

In February 2010 National Lottery Extra ceased to exist. The channel was replaced by extended coverage of Film4, which became 24/7 once the channel stopped, but continued to show just teleshopping and animated captions between around 4am and 11am.

Channel 4 HD joined the platform on 30 March 2010. A few days later, on 2 April, ITV1 HD launched as a standard channel on all platforms. The high-definition version of S4C, Clirlun, launched on 30 April 2010.

Five HD was originally planned to be the fourth HD channel to launch on Freeview. But in March, it was revealed that Five HD would not be launching in 2010. The other applicant, Film4 HD, was also unable to launch. The commercial public service broadcasters will be able apply to the launch of another HD service in 2012, when a fifth HD stream is expected to become available.

The fourth HD channel slot was automatically given to the BBC, who, on 28 May, announced that they intended to use the space to launch a high-definition simulcast of BBC One in the autumn.

During June 2010, 4TVInteractive ceased broadcasting on the platform on channel 300. It was used to provide up to 14 days worth of EPG data to compatible receivers between 3am and 4am. Receivers which relied solely on this data and are not compatible with the standard 8-day EPG requirement for products with digital tick are no longer able to provide advance EPG data.

On 1 July 2010, Al-Jazeera English launched on the platform and Russia Today extended its hours to broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

During August 2010, Sky Sports 1 and 2 were made available on digital terrestrial television via BT Vision and Top Up TV.

On 23 August 2010, Sky Sports News was removed from the platform due to it becoming a pay TV channel. The slot was then reused for a 1-hour timeshift of Sky3, called Sky3 +1.

On 3 September 2010, Virgin1 changed their name to Channel One. This was because its new owner, Sky, was not entitled to use the Virgin name in their channels.

On the midnight after 13 November 2010, CNN International was removed from Freeview.

On 30 November 2010, S4C2 was removed from Freeview, for this being because its live coverage from the National Eisteddfod and Royal Welsh show would be more heavily featured on the main S4C channel. It ceased broadcasting on all remaining platforms on 6 December 2010.

2011