Initially, Big Centre TV was jointly launched by Kaleidoscope co-founder Chris Perry and former ATV announcer and television executive Mike Prince, the station's director of programming.
Opening night programming included an hour-long introduction to the channel, a special edition of the local news programme The Midland, a 1981 episode of Crossroads, and coverage of an ice hockey league match.
The Black Country-based Express & Star observed that the launch programme had been "more corporate video than glitz and glamour" consisting of the channel's executives "sitting in front of their computers and discussing a business plan before the station was blessed by a clergyman".
[5] Responding to the criticism, then-channel director Chris Perry argued that Big Centre TV's teething problems were similar to those experienced by the larger channels, and urged viewers to stay with the station.
On 3 October 2016, Made Television, which was unsuccessful in bidding to run the franchise in 2012, announced it had bought Big Centre for an undisclosed sum, subject to approval from Ofcom.
[13] In January 2022, Ofcom approved a request by the channel to close its Birmingham offices and move permanently to a remote production model implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, with content sent electronically to Local TV's broadcast centre in Leeds for playout.
Talk began to provide the vast majority of the station's programming, with TalkBirmingham opting out for three hours a day to broadcast local news.
As the channel went on air, plans to repeat Crossroads were at the centre of a disagreement over the amount of royalties to be paid to its former actors – Paul Henry (who played Benny Hawkins) reportedly threatened to take legal action over the issue.