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BBC Channel Number Changes

From 31 March on Sky/Freesat (and Freeview for Alba only) (March 2016)

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TC
TCOTV
TCOTV posted:
I am surprised by this. I always thought BBC 4 with a new name would move up to the BBC 3 slot. I guess local TV (like london live) will stay where it is? If so then my guess is if S4/C which is mostly owned by the BBC now? moves up like ALBA then it kind of protects the channel place hold for the BBC. In a long winded way. Also then Local TV 2 could moves up. Example on FreeView from 23 to 8. If this happens then I predict Channel 23 will become a UKTV channel.

That is what is happening on Freeview - the BBC lose channel 7 which will become home to C4 in Wales (S4C is on 4) and BBC Alba, with local TV moving to channel 8. Local TV in England and NI had the option of staying on 8 or moving up to 7, with a few already confirmed as moving in April.

Remains to be seen how 23 is allocated - usually the nearest PSB can make a claim (C5 is on 21, ITV on 24).


I did not relies channel 4 was still on 8 place hold in wales. I thought the goverment would want to get channel 4 in the 4 place hold nationally. Will sell better then. Rolling Eyes I was making a guess about 23. I suppose BidTV could come back. Shocked
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
TCOTV posted:
[I did not relies channel 4 was still on 8 place hold in wales. I thought the goverment would want to get channel 4 in the 4 place hold nationally. Will sell better then. Rolling Eyes I was making a guess about 23. I suppose BidTV could come back. Shocked


S4C is a commercial public broadcaster in Wales and so gets first dibs at Freeview Channel 4.

With regards to Bid TV, if it ever does get going again (which I doubt) it would have to firstly get a broadcast Freeview slot (which are limited) and it would end up at the back of the EPG anyway.
NG
noggin Founding member
TCOTV posted:
TCOTV posted:
I am surprised by this. I always thought BBC 4 with a new name would move up to the BBC 3 slot. I guess local TV (like london live) will stay where it is? If so then my guess is if S4/C which is mostly owned by the BBC now? moves up like ALBA then it kind of protects the channel place hold for the BBC. In a long winded way. Also then Local TV 2 could moves up. Example on FreeView from 23 to 8. If this happens then I predict Channel 23 will become a UKTV channel.

That is what is happening on Freeview - the BBC lose channel 7 which will become home to C4 in Wales (S4C is on 4) and BBC Alba, with local TV moving to channel 8. Local TV in England and NI had the option of staying on 8 or moving up to 7, with a few already confirmed as moving in April.

Remains to be seen how 23 is allocated - usually the nearest PSB can make a claim (C5 is on 21, ITV on 24).


I did not relies channel 4 was still on 8 place hold in wales. I thought the goverment would want to get channel 4 in the 4 place hold nationally. Will sell better then. Rolling Eyes I was making a guess about 23. I suppose BidTV could come back. Shocked


Important to remember that Channel 4 has only been broadcast in Wales since the UK introduced digital TV.

S4C on analogue was Channel 4 in Wales, carrying a mix of Channel 4's English language shows and S4C's Welsh language shows. It is only when S4C Digidol launched that an entirely Welsh language S4C launched, with the C4 programmes carried on S4C analogue made available separately by giving Channel 4 a slot on digital terrestrial (the first time C4 had been available in Wales).

S4C inherited the 4th EPG position for their Digital, all-Welsh, service when digital TV launched. Moving it away from the 4th position and favouring C4 with that would be pretty controversial.
GE
thegeek Founding member
I think I read that Freeview take-up in Wales was a lot more rapid than in the rest of the UK, as people rushed out to buy set-top-boxes to allow them to watch proper Channel 4.

(This then caused problems a few years down the line - in 2009, the Freeview Network Information Table was split into two parts, and many cheap receivers using SetPal firmware couldn't cope with it - including one model which had shifted by the bucketload in Asda in Wales...)
DV
dvboy
Create and Craft will get 23 on Freeview.
VM
VMPhil
I think I read that Freeview take-up in Wales was a lot more rapid than in the rest of the UK, as people rushed out to buy set-top-boxes to allow them to watch proper Channel 4.

(This then caused problems a few years down the line - in 2009, the Freeview Network Information Table was split into two parts, and many cheap receivers using SetPal firmware couldn't cope with it - including one model which had shifted by the bucketload in Asda in Wales...)

Not in Wales but I had a Daewoo SetPal box which was killed off by that change. Bought in a Tesco Extra around the mid-00s. Before it died it had the Teletext Extra EPG pushed to it.

I also had a rather nifty Philips Freeview box with a nice EPG that let you rename and reorder channels, but couldn't handle a certain number of channels without needing a retune the next day. This happened after DSO when the Welsh signal got a lot stronger and we could now receive both the North West and Wales channels easily (so easily that the Welsh channels sometimes knocked the North West channels down to the 800s for some people). I got around this by manually tuning instead.
PF
PFML84
And BBC 3 is now gone from the Sky EPG. I imagine a retune on Freeview and Freesat will get rid of it also. Awww.
LL
Larry the Loafer
BBC3 HD has disappeared from the Virgin EPG but the standard BBC3 still remains with a "Watch BBC Three on iPlayer - Press Red Now" slide with a "TiVo customers only" disclaimer underneath.

Seems like they're keeping a place for it on the EPG as a convenient manner to make use of TiVo's ability to provide the iPlayer natively, in the same way TiVo has a "channel" on the EPG for Netflix and Youtube, but is just a slide telling viewers to press the red button.
TC
TCOTV
pad-e posted:
And BBC 3 is now gone from the Sky EPG. I imagine a retune on Freeview and Freesat will get rid of it also. Awww.



It does. Just retuned and BBC 3 and BBC 3HD are now gone! Sad

Does this mean CBBC is now a 24 stream? Do we expect a CBBC loop from 7pm?
PF
PFML84
I believe there is still programming tonight around 2am again, but considering most / all platforms have now removed access to the channel, who's gonna be able to watch it?

CBBC goes to 9pm from 11th April I believe. No word yet on what will happen between 9pm and 6am.
TC
TCOTV
CBBC is a full 24hours stream on FreeView. Currently got a BBC logo with waves things playing the red button music?
:-(
A former member
TCOTV posted:
Currently got a BBC logo with waves things playing the red button music?

It's rather soothing! Full-size screen grab...

http://tig.gy/?m=bbc-waves.jpg

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