It was set up in 1996 and operated until 2004 as a joint venture between Granada plc and British Sky Broadcasting to launch a range of television channels broadcasting the Granada and LWT archives on the Sky satellite platform, as well as other digital platforms such as ITV Digital (closed on 1 May 2002), NTL and Telewest (both later merged to form Virgin Media).

In 1996, Granada plc and BSkyB agreed to create a joint venture to operate four services on Sky and other cable platforms.

The services were: The GSkyB portfolio greatly increased its reach with the launch of ONdigital, which Granada and Carlton, another dominant ITV rights holder, were funding, in October and November 1998.

In late November 2003, the future of GSkyB was thrown into uncertainty as Granada and Carlton – soon to merge as ITV plc – looked to increase their multichannel presence.

[1] The negotiations that led to ITV plc taking sole control of GSkyB, closing Plus and launching ITV3 on digital satellite were apparently completed just hours before the new channel started broadcasting.

On 23 February 2006, despite the previous decision not to close Men & Motors, fresh rumours over the channel's future began to circulate due to poorer than expected performance from ITV4.

In 2021, commissions for ITV2, ITVBe and CITV were altered in that they would debut first on the ITV Hub, then on the linear channels, whilst ITV2 was given a wider brief for producing factual content.