TVARK was founded in the dial-up era, as a one-man hobby site called Television Ark on 8 November 1998. At that time, there were just a few pages containing a handful of low resolution clips that were easy to download but were smaller to look at than an average postage stamp. Over the years, the clips and images grew in size and quantity. The site expanded and was run entirely as a hobby by an eight-man team, with updates and additions made whenever time permitted. In December 2005, they absorbed the remains of SchoolsTV.com, a website dedicated to television programming for schools. The site is dedicated to the founder's late mother, Valerie Hackett.