Duo (also known as F2 from 2002-2016 and Fresh2 from May 16, 2016 to October 8, 2016) is an American cable and satellite-exclusive television network owned and operated by The Independent Networks. The channel airs a wide variety of programming targeted to youths (around 11 to 21 years old), plus reruns of well-known TV shows that are ended.
History[]
Pre-Duo (2002-2016)[]
Screenshot of Duo airing a music video (Metronomy - The Look).
Initial launch/run as F2 (January 2002-May 2016)[]
Duo originally launched as the channel F2 on January 1, 2002 at 6am EST. In 2002, the channel began broadcasting 24/7 (the channel originally broadcast from 6am-11pm EST). In the past, F2 originally aired almost a majority of Teletoon original programming. However, much of the acquired archival programming were later replaced with newer acquired programming.
In 2004, four new channels were launched, these include F2 Plus, F2 Music, F2 Latino, and a pay-per-view channel called Access. According to Duo, these were one of the channels to took advantage of our programming. An additional channel, known as F3 was launched in 2016. Those channels (except Access) were merged on October 8, 2016.
As demand for international franchise of those channels already became a trend by broadcasters, The Independent Networks set up a headquarters in UK for their first international feed, which is France and Belgium, the feeds are transmitted via satellite.
Relaunch as Fresh2 (May-October 2016)[]
On May 16, 2016, F2 was relaunched as Fresh2. The relaunched came after Canadian production company Fresh TV announced that it would be forming a joint venture with The Independent Networks to relaunch F2.
As Duo (2016-present)[]
On October 8, 2016, following the termination of TIN's and Fresh TV's partnership, Fresh2 was relaunched as Duo. The relaunched replaced the more syndicated lineup used in the past, and was remodeled to resemble various youth-oriented channels (such as Freeform, Family Channel, and Boing). Most of the side channels, with the exception of Access, were all merged into Duo.
Due to some TV channels that are particular with channel drift (such as MTV), Duo avoided that issue since its rebrand, making it a network similar to Liongate's Pop!, but maintained for the majority of viewers.
On-air bumpers[]
From 2002 until 2007, Duo's own on-air bumpers (at the time it was F2) were designed by Lambie-Nairn (who created the BBC idents from the 1990s). These bumpers are usually based on the year's trends. The soundtrack are primarily based on electronic genres, as well as pop music and alternative rock, a trend that became well-known.
From 2007 until 2013, a new broadcast package were created by Lumens in Italy, The Orphanage in Los Angeles (their last set of bumpers were made in 2011), and Reel FX.
In 2013, a new set of on-air bumpers were released. Designed by ManvsMachine in UK, Smoke And Mirrors, Los York, Lightbourne, Motion Theory, Resin, Uprising Creative, Favorite Color, METAphrenie, ThinkBreathLive, Ntropic, Endesign, ONIX, and Kemistry, the bumpers theme is about the youth culture of the 2010s (defined as millennials). In addition to that, flat design is used wholly throughout the branding. Lambie-Nairn also did some bumpers as well. During the channel's rebrand on October 8, 2016, all of the 14 broadcast design studios/agencies remade the similar bumpers with the new logo.
Programming[]
Main article: List of programs broadcast by Duo
Prior to its channel rebrand to Duo on October 2016, F2/Fresh2 aired archival programming from various television networks (such as The CW, The WB and other TV channels) and its production companies. The channel was well-known for airing hard-to-find television shows that has been reran on other TV channels from around the world. However, due to a competition with the BritCan Communications channels nowadays, other programs that has been reran since then were dropped almost entirely.
Related services[]
High definition[]
In 2011, Duo launched an HD simulcast of the East feed, along with Canada. This made some of the legacy and older programs upconverted to 14:9 (a process used by some TV channels in Europe, such as CBBC in the UK, VH1 in the Pan-European and Discovery's HD simulcast networks in the United States), while widescreen SD programs are upscaled at 1080i.
As of 2012, Duo's East and West feeds included an HD simulcast for both feeds with the exception of DirecTV and Dish Network's West feed.
Video on demand[]
In 2011, Duo introduced a new video on demand service called "Duo Now" (formerly F2 Now and Fresh Now). Content on Duo Now includes an abundance of full episodes of original and acquired series, plus clips of original and acquired series as well. In 2012, Duo rolled out the service to mobile users via Android's Play Store and iOS's App Store.
With the shift to HTML5, Duo dropped its Flash video support in 2014 in favor of Google's VP9 WebM format.
Availability[]
See also: List of international versions of Duo
In the United States, Duo is available via most cable providers (such as Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and Comcast), IPTV services (such as Verizon's FiOS, AT&T's U-verse and CenturyLink Prism) and on satellite (DirecTV and Dish Network).
In addition to that, Duo's master feed is available on Anik F1R (which can be received in the United States and Canada), which is encrypted in Digicipher 2. This channel is also available on Intelsat 19 as an unencrypted (free-to-air) HD channel, which can be received on East Coast of the United States and Canada, parts of Asia (including China and the Philippines) and Oceania under the West hemisphere footprint.
Live streaming of this channel is available since 2012 under their website and their mobile application. To access the live stream, the user must be a subscriber to log-in through their cable or satellite provider service account. Once authenticated the user can then select either the East or West Coast feeds to view the live feed, which is optimised to play on both wireless Internet and cell data (i.e. 3G/4G) services.
Logos[]
