Alstair Gosling from Essex in the UK founder of Extreme International and a passionate skier, surfer and came up with the idea for the Network in 1996. In 1997 Alistair, Ben Barret, Juanjo Marquez and Adam Oliver started approaching potential investors to back the plan for a new brand and TV network dedicated to extreme and adventure sports. UPCtv, the programming arm of Europe's largest cable television operator UPC, was looking for new channels to offer its subscribers and in April 1998 Extreme international was exhibiting at the MIP programming market in Cannes, France, Ben Barrett the sales director was approached by Stephen Cohen, UPCtv's Chief Operating Officer, with a proposal for a joint venture between the two companies. Extreme partnered with
UPC raised the capital required and The Extreme Sports Channel was launched from the
Netherlands on 1 May 1999, and after launching in 22 other countries it launched in the
UK in 2000. The channel was designed by Gosling and Cohen, management and content was produced, curated and delivered by Extreme International and technical play out and uplink were supplied by UPC. In late 1999, Extreme launched its
United States operations, and charged veteran producer,
Lloyd Bryan Adams with the task of heading up the North American presence. They launched EXtreme TV, a branded block on Fox Sports Net in March 2012. In 2005, are signed up to Planet Mark to measure impact, 1% For The Planet to give back and the UN’s Sports for Climate Action to drive awareness. The channel launched in Poland in January 2006, followed by France in that same year.
AMC Networks acquired Chellomedia on 2 February 2014. Chellomedia was rebranded by
AMC Networks International on 8 July 2014. On 31 December 2015, the channel was removed from the Sky EPG. As of 27 October 2021 Extreme became available on Channelbox via Freeview channel 271 in the UK. Channelbox is a free IPTV service available to any Freeview compatible device that can connect to both an aerial and internet. In June 2024, the company acquired their own streaming slot on Freeview under the name Extreme Channel on channel 295. As of February 2025 Extreme decided to give up its separate slot on Freeview in favour of Channelbox and focusing on their Extreme Plus streaming application ==Programmes==