Developer Center

I am simply trying to rewrite automatically this:
From: mysite.com/channel.php?id=BBC&name=British Broadcasting Company &date=today
To: mysite.com/channel-britishbroadcastingcompany-today.html
I've tried with:
RewriteRule ^channel-(.*)-(.*)\.html$ /channel.php?id=1&name=$2&date=$3 [R]
But nothing happens.

Hope this simplest one will help you out. This will redirect if
1. REQUEST_URI is /channel.php
2. QUERY_STRING matches this pattern id=something&name=something&date=something
Redirect this to /channel-%1-%2.html here
1. %1 will hold value of name parameter
2. %2 will hold value of date parameter
RewriteEngine on
Options -MultiViews
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/channel\.php$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} id=.*?&name=(.*?)&date=(.*)
RewriteRule .* /channel-%1-%2.html? [R=301]

See
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-s
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_.]+)/?$ index.php?id=$1 [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z0-9-_.]+)/([a-z0-9]+)/?$ index.php?id=$1&goto=$2 [NC,L]
What it's going to do is check the index.php and replace to some like, site/dir/index.php to site/dir/namehere than in index.php you can use explode() to separate the values of current url ang get the variables

If I understand the problem correctly, You currently have a file channel.php and what You want to achieve is get more "friendly" URLs for SEO and general aesthetics in the browser location bar but still have channel.php handle your requests.
If this is really the case then You need a two-way rewrite.
First, You need to take your original URL and redirect it to a new, pretty version.
Second, You need to rewrite this pretty URI internally and still feed it to channel.php behind the scenes.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# This part rewrites channel.php?name=X&date=Y into channel-X-Y.html
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ^$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} =GET
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (.*\&)?name=([^&]+)\&date=([^&]+)(?:\&(.*))?
RewriteRule ^channel.php$ channel-%2-%3.html?%1%4 [R,L,NE]
# This part rewrites it back into channel.php but keeps the "friendly" URL visible
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^channel-(.*)-(.*).html$ channel.php?name=$1&date=$2 [L,QSA]
Note that the first rule-set limits the rewrite to method GET - otherwise You will lose any submitted POST data.
It also allows for any other query-string parameters to surround name and date (the rest of query-string parameters will pass-through to .html URI and then will be picked back up by channel.php)
Also note the ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS rule - this is crucial, without that part You'll be stuck in redirect loop.

I am assuming you are asking for rewrite although you are using redirect flag in your current rules, and also assuming BBC to be static in id variable then try with below,
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^channel-([^/]+)-([^/]+).html$ channel.php?id=BBC&name=$1&date=$2 [L]