MA
🤔
There is no flag emoji for Northern Ireland, so I improvised and put the general Irish flag in.
🤔
PP
Moving on from the emoji thing, when did the BBC One English regions go onto Sky? What about BBC Two’s nations and regions? 🤔
LL
From the launch of Sky Digital in 1998, there were four variants, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for BBC1/Choice, while there was only the network version of BBC Two.
In January 2002, a red button service was introduced for five BBC1 regions, London, North West, South, West Midlands and Yorkshire during regional news bulletins, finally at the end of May 2003, the BBC went FTA and added the remaining regions to Sky.
London Lite
Founding member
Moving on from the emoji thing, when did the BBC One English regions go onto Sky? What about BBC Two’s nations and regions? 🤔
From the launch of Sky Digital in 1998, there were four variants, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for BBC1/Choice, while there was only the network version of BBC Two.
In January 2002, a red button service was introduced for five BBC1 regions, London, North West, South, West Midlands and Yorkshire during regional news bulletins, finally at the end of May 2003, the BBC went FTA and added the remaining regions to Sky.
DV
You'd have been better off not using flags at all.
There is no flag emoji for Northern Ireland, so I improvised and put the general Irish flag in. Hope this clarifies it. 
You'd have been better off not using flags at all.
GE
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.
thegeek
Founding member
There is no flag emoji for Northern Ireland, so I improvised and put the general Irish flag in. Hope this clarifies it.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.
SP
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.
Thanks for that, this makes a lot more sense now
There is no flag emoji for Northern Ireland, so I improvised and put the general Irish flag in. Hope this clarifies it.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.
Thanks for that, this makes a lot more sense now
MA
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.
Thanks for that, this makes a lot more sense now
If I stare at it, it looks like a mug of frothy coffee, or is it just me?
There is no flag emoji for Northern Ireland, so I improvised and put the general Irish flag in. Hope this clarifies it.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.
Thanks for that, this makes a lot more sense now
If I stare at it, it looks like a mug of frothy coffee, or is it just me?
BU
From the launch of Sky Digital in 1998, there were four variants, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for BBC1/Choice, while there was only the network version of BBC Two.
In January 2002, a red button service was introduced for five BBC1 regions, London, North West, South, West Midlands and Yorkshire during regional news bulletins, finally at the end of May 2003, the BBC went FTA and added the remaining regions to Sky.
I think the Red Button service was only during the 1830 programme too, so it was very basic. They did however use it as an excuse to bin off UK Today, meaning BBC London was suddenly seen an awful lot.
Towards the end of UK Today, they took a few days off over Christmas 2001 (presumably not willing to staff over Christmas when they were about to be closed down). This meant BBC LDN was seen on all platforms on News 24 during Breakfast, a few months after it launch. I recall this caused a bit of excitement on TV Forum at the time as it was the first time the (very new) service had been seen outside of London/SE.
Greg Dyke talks about the decision to go FTA on DSAT in his autobiography. Can't recall the full details but they basically called Sky's bluff and went for it, because they knew they wouldn't be able to pull them from the Sky EPG without a huge backlash.
From the launch of Sky Digital in 1998, there were four variants, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for BBC1/Choice, while there was only the network version of BBC Two.
In January 2002, a red button service was introduced for five BBC1 regions, London, North West, South, West Midlands and Yorkshire during regional news bulletins, finally at the end of May 2003, the BBC went FTA and added the remaining regions to Sky.
I think the Red Button service was only during the 1830 programme too, so it was very basic. They did however use it as an excuse to bin off UK Today, meaning BBC London was suddenly seen an awful lot.
Towards the end of UK Today, they took a few days off over Christmas 2001 (presumably not willing to staff over Christmas when they were about to be closed down). This meant BBC LDN was seen on all platforms on News 24 during Breakfast, a few months after it launch. I recall this caused a bit of excitement on TV Forum at the time as it was the first time the (very new) service had been seen outside of London/SE.
Greg Dyke talks about the decision to go FTA on DSAT in his autobiography. Can't recall the full details but they basically called Sky's bluff and went for it, because they knew they wouldn't be able to pull them from the Sky EPG without a huge backlash.
MA
Greg Dyke talks about the decision to go FTA on DSAT in his autobiography. Can't recall the full details but they basically called Sky's bluff and went for it, because they knew they wouldn't be able to pull them from the Sky EPG without a huge backlash.
Well, he saved on the encryption costs, but (and we'll never know the details for sure) there was an awful lot of speculation at the time whether or not the new sum paid to BSkyB wasn't at least as much, because of all the English regional EPG postcode mapping. Encryption costs were regulated by Ofcom, postcode mapping I'm not sure was ?
As it was, the BBC originally adopted ITV's regional mapping template, so there were instances of, for example, BBC West Midlands being mapped to South Oxfordshire etc
Greg Dyke talks about the decision to go FTA on DSAT in his autobiography. Can't recall the full details but they basically called Sky's bluff and went for it, because they knew they wouldn't be able to pull them from the Sky EPG without a huge backlash.
Well, he saved on the encryption costs, but (and we'll never know the details for sure) there was an awful lot of speculation at the time whether or not the new sum paid to BSkyB wasn't at least as much, because of all the English regional EPG postcode mapping. Encryption costs were regulated by Ofcom, postcode mapping I'm not sure was ?
As it was, the BBC originally adopted ITV's regional mapping template, so there were instances of, for example, BBC West Midlands being mapped to South Oxfordshire etc
BR
Seem to be a few opt outs late on Wednesday night running for an hour at 11.10.
Yorkshire, East Midlands and Cambridge are showing different episodes of A Very British History, East Yorks & Lincs showing Lost Portraits of Bradord and NE & Cumbria and West showing different episodes of Sea Cities. Other regions are showing The Truth about Alcohol.
P.S. The Channel Tunnel series mentioned at the beginning of the thread is now getting an airing on BBC2.
Yorkshire, East Midlands and Cambridge are showing different episodes of A Very British History, East Yorks & Lincs showing Lost Portraits of Bradord and NE & Cumbria and West showing different episodes of Sea Cities. Other regions are showing The Truth about Alcohol.
P.S. The Channel Tunnel series mentioned at the beginning of the thread is now getting an airing on BBC2.