The network had previously expressed their interest in running a general entertainment channel to coincide with the relaunch on NTL: Telewest to Virgin Media.

Some media sources have claimed that it was intended to be in direct competition with British Sky Broadcasting's flagship channel, Sky1, which in August 2010 had a 0.8% share of the market compared with Virgin1's 0.7%.

As part of the rebrand, a mascot called Red was introduced, a puppet character from the creator of the ITV Digital Monkey.

The time-shifted service continued to operate on satellite and cable platforms, between 04:00 and 01:00 daily (the live Challenge Jackpot simulcast on Virgin1 between 00:00 and 03:00 was not time‑shifted).

At 06:00 on 1 February 2011, Channel One ceased broadcasting on all platforms; the last programme was an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.

The following is a list of the ten most watched shows on Channel One, based on Live +7 data supplied by BARB up to 18 October 2010.

[10] The schedule for Channel One consisted of a mixture of British and American comedy, drama and factual programming, both acquired and commissioned.