Mediacorp Channel U

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Mediacorp Channel U" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Mediacorp Channel U or Channel U (U频道; pinyin: U Píndào) is Singapore's second free-to-air Mandarin television channel in Singapore.

Upon merger with MediaCorp on 1 January 2005, Singapore viewers aged 15–45 became Channel U's target audience and broadcasting hours was changed to begin at 3:00pm SST on weekday and 10:00am SST on weekend and now closes down every 2:30am (the following day). Channel U continued to air the Ren Ci charity shows (as it did previously when under SPH MediaWorks) and started to run Campus SuperStar a singing competition for teenagers. There are more locally produced programmes on the channel, which included a revamp of the news bulletins, and the introduction of new current events and variety programmes.

Between 1 January 2005 and 14 August 2012, it exclusively aired 100% Entertainment, 23 hours after Taiwan's Gala Television's original broadcast, from Sundays to Thursdays, at 5pm and again before transmission ended. In 2010, there was a major programming refresh of Channel U during prime-time hours. Channel U started having non-stop entertainment programmes on weekdays between 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm with acquired programmes from the region and local productions. Its weekend news bulletin News Club, which aired at 7pm, was replaced by current affairs programmes Money Week and World This Week, which were previously aired on Friday at 9:30pm and Monday at 9:30pm, respectively.

On 13 April 2015, Channel U changed its target audience to people aged 25 to 55, as this age group is growing and Mediacorp understands that there is an increasing need to appeal to them.^[5] The weekday evening programming was revamped to have three time-belts from 7pm to 11pm, namely "K-Family Drama" (优选拌饭剧场), "Local Infotainment" (原创资讯节目) and "The Best of Asian Drama" (亚洲最Hit戏剧). The weekend programming was revamped to have a new time-belt "Weekend Thematic Special" (周末U选强档) from 9pm to 11pm.

• 带动亚洲流行 (Leading Asia's Trends, 1 January 2005 – 30 November 2008)
• 最精彩 (The Most Exciting, 1 December 2008 - 12 April 2015, complements MediaCorp Channel 8's longtime former slogan, 最亲切 (The Most Endearing))
• 活出个性 (Live It Up, 13 April 2015 - now)

Channel U shares artists with Mediacorp TV Channel 8. For example, Jeanette Aw is the lead artist for Channel U's Jump! (2012) and Channel 8's Beyond (2012).

Also, since March 2010, Channel U airs the delayed version of Mediacorp Channel 8's News Tonight an hour after the original broadcast on Mediacorp Channel 8, every night at 23:00 SST. Occasionally, the program also broadcast "live" when there are mistakes or technical difficulties during the 10:00pm edition on Channel 8 or there are special reports to be shown live. One notable exception is that Channel U aired its first "live" edition of News Tonight at 11:00pm on 5 May 2013. This is the first time Channel U did so in three years, to present the live results of the 2013 Malaysian general election.

9:00pm to 10:00pm, Fridays - Channel U

• Zhao Quan Yin (赵全胤)
• Wang Zheng (王征)
• Zhao Wen Bei (赵文蓓)
• Kristine Lim (林稚瑛)

• MediaCorp Channel U Official Website