Pay TV channels could soon be available for Freeview under plans to launch a new subscription service, Broadcast reports this week.
Called 'Top-Up TV', the premium package is the brainchild of former Sky executives David Chance and Ian West. The pair were one of the applicants who tendered a bid to run the DTT service after the demise of ITV Digital in 2002 but lost out to the joint BBC/Sky/Crown Castle consortium, Freeview.
Around ten channels would initially be in the lineup for the package, including the likes of E4, Sky One, TCM, Cartoon Network, UK Gold and Discovery. Top-Up TV would initially be aimed at the 1.25 million households with old ITV digital boxes and integrated digital TVs.
Subscribers would have to pay around £8 to £10 per month for the premium addon, which could launch as early as April.
The announcement is likely to anger the BBC, who have been largely successful in educating viewers about their new 'free' digital service; the launch of Top-Up TV on the platform could add to viewer confusion and slow down growth of the product.
Can't they leave Freeview alone. There is very little room left in the multiplexes and using old ITV Digital boxes, please, they are by and large unreliable,slow and have a really substandard (and heavily hacked encryption system).
I think the worst thing is that it will remove the essential Free message from Freeview that has sold it to so many people. How are we to get the great unwashed to move off analogue if this message is dilluted, they are already suspitious that Digital means pay TV.
This will NEVER happen. How on earth can they find room for 10 channels when there is no room left for anymore free channels? I bet the quality of these channels will be so bad like ITV digital. People will soon complain if they cannot receive them.
Once this company can clearly point out the room for these channels and NOT use any of the freeview MUX's then I might take some interest.
I think the worst thing is that it will remove the essential Free message from Freeview that has sold it to so many people. How are we to get the great unwashed to move off analogue if this message is dilluted, they are already suspitious that Digital means pay TV.
Yes, but the flip side is that people are also realising that you get what you pay for, and if you pay nothing, then you get very little.
I would love to see this, but there are of course big technical questions to answer.
Where the hell are they going to but 10 more channels? The only direct way of increasing capacity is to put some or all of multiplexes 1, B, C and D back on 64QAM, which would provide capacity for up to 8 more channels, at the expense of signal robustness. But after all the hassle involved in switching to 16QAM in the first place, I doubt they'd go back.
And of course with the way the multiplexes are licenced (and that you can't put pay channels on multiplex 1), they'd have to negotiate with the licencees to allow this to happen.
To go off on a tangent slightly, I don't believe the way DTT is presently licenced is the best approach to take. Licencing entire multiplexes and leaving it to the licencee to put channels on it creates a situation where broadcasters can become monopolistic, effectively turning DTT into 'their' platform (as happened with ITV Digital), it also allows space to lie redundant and locked out from channel providers not 'in' with the licencee, which I don't think is the most effective way to manage space on a platform with such limited capacity.
I believe that there should have been a body appointed to manage the DTT multiplexes (a consolidation between the BSC and the ITC, and of course now would be OFCOM). Each channel should then be individually licenced to operate on DTT, and this control body then assigns channels to a multiplex as they see fit. There would be no concept of a particular broadcaster holding a multiplex, where they are broadcast from would be entirely irrelevant. It then enables maximum use of the limited space available.
It would also give better priority to existing 'main' analogue broadcasters - with multiplex 1 being the most likely to be received, it would have made sense to put BBC1, BBC2, ITV, C4 and C5 all on the same multiplex - a situation where you've got a better chance of receiving CBBC Channel than ITV (and a better chance of receiving price drop.tv than C5) is surely not a good thing.
But anyway, that isn't how it's done, and at present the BBC are still able to waste most of a second multiplex, Freeview are free to prevent anyone else from getting in on their space, and Channel 4 still have redudant space which they can hold onto forever with no channel on it.
So, where are these channels going to go? Unless OFCOM is going to bring more multiplexes into operation (can that even be technically done?), I don't see this as being anything more than a pipe dream.
But, putting all that aside and assuming they can find space, there are other aspects to deal with.
Saying that they are targetting users of old ITV Digital boxes (not a bad idea with just over a million of them still in active use) implies that they are using the same encryption system so viewers can slot the viewing card into the existing slot on the box, negating the need to have so many CAMs made. That could be a fatal mistake. The encryption system is weak, and had been in use in France for many years, it was broken even before On Digital launched. When the service was running, pirate cards changed hands on the internet for a tenner a piece. Every time they used an ECM, someone got around it and released a new card. Every time a website was shut down, a new one sprung up. It was estimated that at one point, up to a third of Sky Premier's viewers weren't paying for it.
Piracy was a big cause of their precarious financial position, and for another company to go down the same road would open themselves up to the same problems all over again. It may even be the case that pirate cards which have survived from ITV Digital's days (it's only been 2 years remember, there are probably numerous cards still in existance) could start working again, which could have a catastrophic effect on the new company's efforts to get started.
A limited pay TV service on DTT I think is an excellent idea (I was a strong backer of the 'Freeview' with 'Freeview Plus' chargeable addon which was proposed), I firmly believe there is enough of a market to make it viable, it only failed before because ITV Digital tried to go for the same customers as Sky, which was never going to work, but sadly I don't think this one will come to fruition.
I guess that it might be possible for this service to launch if they bought out all of SDN and Five's capacity - as well as Channel Four's spare slots.
If SDN decided to sell their half of Mux A they could probably get 3 services in there.
If Five sold off their capacity that would be another 2.
Channel Four could sell off their spare capacity - which again would be another 2.
Sure there are people using the SDN and Five capacity at the moment - but I suspect these contracts could be renegotiated? Channel Four are not doing anything with their capacity in Mux 1 at the moment?
Sure there are people using the SDN and Five capacity at the moment - but I suspect these contracts could be renegotiated? Channel Four are not doing anything with their capacity in Mux 1 at the moment?
I'd never thought about the possibility of removing existing channels, but cleansing the platform of shopping channels and putting some decent ones in there would be good (I'd hope QVC would still remain however).
Each channel should then be individually licenced to operate on DTT, and this control body then assigns channels to a multiplex as they see fit. There would be no concept of a particular broadcaster holding a multiplex, where they are broadcast from would be entirely irrelevant. It then enables maximum use of the limited space available.
I could not agree more with you on this point.
But of course in the UK, commercial profit, greed, and power are more important than any
"sensible arrangement in the best interests of the public".
2 - how is this possible when none of the new boxes have decryption software?
Well, if you read it said it would be aimed at people with boxes that have the decryption software.
I wonder if this happens, if it would be possible for people to add CAMs to the receivers to use 'Top-Up TV'. But then again, only one model of box has the Common Interface socket