The following day, UKTV announced that the channel would be relaunched as UK Gold 2 from 2 April 1999, and eventually expand its broadcast hours.

On 16 March 2006, they announced a deal to air extensive coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup as a sub-licensing of the BBC's rights to the tournament.

[20][21] To ensure that all Freeview viewers received Dave on channel number 19, UKTV briefly placed a re-tuning notice on the programme's information.

The timeshift service UKTV G2 +1 was effectively renamed Dave +1 and expanded its own broadcast hours to match its parent network.

[citation needed] Dave used the tagline "the home of witty banter", and had Ralph Ineson as an announcer; along with David Flynn, Phill Jupitus, Iain Lee and BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James.

[22] On 22 January 2009, following UKTV's acquisition of a further Freeview broadcast slot, Dave +1 was made available on the digital terrestrial platform.

During the airing of the Red Dwarf mini-series, the Dave DOG in the top left corner of the screen had the word 'Lister' added after it in the same font, after the show's lead character; during the special it is even suggested that the station is named after him.

Back to Earth brought record breaking viewing figures, not just in the context of the channel's past, but for digital television in general.

[citation needed] At the same time, the voice of Dave became Nigel Grover, aka Scott Saunders, who had previously worked at a number of local radio stations.

[25] To facilitate this, Dave ja vu's broadcast hours on the platform were reduced from 8.00 am-4.00 am to 2.00 am-4.00 am in order to keep the space for future use.

On 29 July 2011, UKTV announced that it had secured a deal with BSkyB to launch three more high-definition channels on Sky UK.

[citation needed] In June 2019, Dave moved back to channel 19 on Freeview, a space previously occupied by Yesterday.

[34][35][36][37][38] From 28 March 2022, Dave Ja Vu took Drama+1's slot on Freeview 74, with that one-hour timeshift of Drama moving up to channel 60.

In November 2007, the broadcaster listed daily viewing averages at around 3 million viewers, although, much of the growth was attributed to its presence on Freeview; nonetheless, it was performing significantly better in pay TV homes than UKTV G2.

[41] Dave received 4 million viewers throughout 18 November 2007 for its coverage of "Car of the Year", pushing it to second place in multichannel behind ITV2.

[44] In late May 2016, Dave broadcast full live coverage of the 2016 BDO World Trophy darts tournament.

In 2012, Dave introduced its 'film club' where a different film would be shown every week, including Barton Fink, City of God, The Big Lebowski, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Taxi Driver, and Clerks to name a few.

[45] Presented by Ben Shires, the podcast comprises interviews with comedians such as Russell Kane, Jo Brand, Adam Buxton, Paul Foot and Alex Horne along with occasional features.

The award is voted on by the public from a shortlist and aims to highlight the best single joke told at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.