Freeview customers set to lose channels too

Bally12345

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Virgin Media customers are not the only people to feel the brunt of Sky's bullying tactics. Freeview customers are affected, too. Sky announced that it will be removing its channels from the Freeview service before the summer.
 
It is if they take off Sky News, probably 70% of the time thats the only Channel I have on my freeview
 
Just ordered new telly with freeview, was looking forward to watching the elusive Sky3.

Not sure why they pulling it from Freeview for.
 
They are pulling it to put it on tutv and charge for it.
 
They are pulling it to put it on tutv and charge for it.
They actually hope to start their own terrestrial pay channel platform- a rival to top-up tv. You will need a new sky terrestrial decoder, the existing top-up tv ones or freeview ones wouldnt be compatible. Apart from that, yes they are pulling them so they can charge money but the channels available may also be different ones to those they remove, such as sports/movies etc.

The loss will be to 'freeview' that has been fully backed by the bbc. Less free channls can only mean less users at the end of the day, people will jump over to cable or to satellite.
 
lets hope ofcom show some balls and refuse sky permission to set up yet another pay tv platform/ freeview will overtake sky as the preffered digital tv platform in the next 2 years,it is only another attempt by sky to dominate the airwaves and force out competition
 
where did u get this info m8 ?
 
if its my post you meant, then i will have to dig through lots of junk see what links i can find for different parts :). Sky have officially requested permission to remove 3 channels to replace with 5 others that will use higher compressed mpeg4 transmission stream (so 5 will go into the space of 3). The current top-up-tv and freeview equipment is not mpeg4 compatible. The part that mentioned a 'rival' is a bit misleading as thats not based on evidence sorry :(. Its unsure and unclear yet if the proposal will mean top-up-tv will have carriage and use their seca encryption then just pay rights to sky, or if sky will offer an extended package, like a 'third tier' > freeview>top-up-tv>top-up-sky and indeed then where you may get a rival option> freeview>skypack.

At the moment sky will not favour someone else having control of their broadcasts, and equally broadcasters now know the bully-boy tactics can cost far too much money. Sky will also not want to develop a new receiver that ultimately uses their main rivals encryption (kudelski).

Lots of ripples in the water, lots will happen soon.
 
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Sky to launch new DTT service
Thursday, February 8 2007, 16:08 GMT

By Joanne Oatts, Media Correspondent


Sky has announced that it is developing plans for the launch of a subscription television service on digital terrestrial television (DTT) this summer.

The new service will allow customers to receive some of Sky's most popular programmes - including sport and movies - through a conventional rooftop aerial and a DTT box for a monthly subscription.

The announcement comes on the day that the merged companies of Virgin Mobile and NTL Telewest relaunched as Virgin Media.

The line-up of channels on the new Sky service will offer a range of content including sports, movies, entertainment and news. The sports service will include live coverage from the Barclays Premiership and other top events. Full details, including branding, pricing and the complete channel line-up, will be revealed closer to launch.

Previously, a selection of Sky's basic and premium pay TV content - including live Premiership football - was available on DTT from 1998 to 2002.

The new service will make use of existing capacity that Sky currently uses to broadcast Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News. As a result, these channels will cease to be available free-to-air via DTT in advance of the launch of the pay-TV service.

Mike Darcey, Sky's chief operating officer, said: "We look forward to bringing some of Sky's most popular content to digital terrestrial viewers. This will give families more choice and increase the availability of leading content and channel brands."

Sky plans to broadcast its pay-TV channels on DTT using the more efficient MPEG4 compression technology, enabling Sky to offer four 24-hour video streams in place of the three Sky channels currently available, with further improvements expected in future. The pay-TV service will use a highly secure conditional access (CA) system similar to the one that Sky uses for its satellite television service.

To access the service, customers will have to buy a new set-top box that includes the relevant CA software and MPEG4 decoder. It is anticipated that once the service launches multiple manufacturers will have the opportunity to produce compatible set-top-boxes.

The launch of the new service is subject to approval by Ofcom. The regulator would have to modify licences held by Sky and transmission provider National Grid Wireless in order to permit the service to operate.
 
Sky to launch new DTT service
Thursday, February 8 2007, 16:08 GMT

By Joanne Oatts, Media Correspondent


Sky has announced that it is developing plans for the launch of a subscription television service on digital terrestrial television (DTT) this summer.

The new service will allow customers to receive some of Sky's most popular programmes - including sport and movies - through a conventional rooftop aerial and a DTT box for a monthly subscription.

The announcement comes on the day that the merged companies of Virgin Mobile and NTL Telewest relaunched as Virgin Media.

The line-up of channels on the new Sky service will offer a range of content including sports, movies, entertainment and news. The sports service will include live coverage from the Barclays Premiership and other top events. Full details, including branding, pricing and the complete channel line-up, will be revealed closer to launch.

Previously, a selection of Sky's basic and premium pay TV content - including live Premiership football - was available on DTT from 1998 to 2002.

The new service will make use of existing capacity that Sky currently uses to broadcast Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News. As a result, these channels will cease to be available free-to-air via DTT in advance of the launch of the pay-TV service.

Mike Darcey, Sky's chief operating officer, said: "We look forward to bringing some of Sky's most popular content to digital terrestrial viewers. This will give families more choice and increase the availability of leading content and channel brands."

Sky plans to broadcast its pay-TV channels on DTT using the more efficient MPEG4 compression technology, enabling Sky to offer four 24-hour video streams in place of the three Sky channels currently available, with further improvements expected in future. The pay-TV service will use a highly secure conditional access (CA) system similar to the one that Sky uses for its satellite television service.

To access the service, customers will have to buy a new set-top box that includes the relevant CA software and MPEG4 decoder. It is anticipated that once the service launches multiple manufacturers will have the opportunity to produce compatible set-top-boxes.

The launch of the new service is subject to approval by Ofcom. The regulator would have to modify licences held by Sky and transmission provider National Grid Wireless in order to permit the service to operate.

if this happens then sly is getting hacked defo as there will be no talk back as is the case when useing there box and dish
and i know some one will shout at me if wrong lol
 
i will miss sky sports news. watch that daily when you get home from work for about 20 mins.

the others i never go near.

isn't there competition laws that would mean if sky were to do this then they would have make there own system compatible with the existing boxes.
 
thats the trouble sky have every 1 by the short n curlies
 
The thing that annoys me most is that Sky were granted a licence for bandwidth for free channels. They now want to convert that bandwidth to payTV, reducing the available bandwidth for free-to-air services. They need Ofcom's permission to do this and I sincerely hope that Ofcom tell them where to go.

Ofcom will be holding a consultation, expected to last 10 weeks, and I encourage everyone to participate when it opens. This thread on the topfield forums is a discussion of the proposals with some suggested arguments to submit to Ofcom. See the post by nwhitfield.
 
The only Sky channel is Sky Three occassionally when futurama is on, but that is rare. I won't miss them, and i hope they are replaced by better things.
 
Im not bothered. I hardly ever watch sky 3 and we have news 24 so dont need sky news. As for skysports news i hardly ever watch that anymore most of it is just looped every hour anyway.
 
It seems sky have decided against this plan now.
News here- http://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=115946

They will likely leave these channels on freeview for now and not invest in a terrestrial pay-tv system. The big loss of custom from virgin, the pressure from Sky News employees, the public annoyance of plans to destroy freeview are all to blame. Maybe ofcom had a private word before official licence applications and said- "you got no chance" lol.
 
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