Availability of other national broadcasters

It may not have been a satellite feed, it may just have been the feed that was also used for satellite uplink. (i.e. the BBC provided NTL with the same feed - almost certainly over fibre - that the BBC also uplinked to satellite)

We'll never know for sure, but it was speculated at the time that the cost of the detailed English regional postcode mapping, (which initially used ITV's template, so places like Oxford ended up with BBC 1 W Midlands on EPG 101, but that's another story) and the provision of all out of area national and regional variants on 9XX were charged by Sky at a similar rate to the encryption anyway.

And of course the BBC had to rent two or three extra transponders, to carry the extra 13 or 14 regions.

As I said in another thread a few days ago, I'm mystified why the BBC make no on air mention of the out of area regional provision on 9XX on Sky (and Freesat) They are probably paying a lot of money for the feature.

It seems as if the easiest way to receive French, Italian, or German channels in the British Isles is to hire a handyman that specialises in installing TNT Sat and their likes. It’s not going to come cheap as it could set one back by £350-400 for the dish, box and installation costs. And I feel it will become messy if you want Freesat + TNT Sat + their Italian and German satellite counterparts all at once - up to four dishes or boxes.

It doesn’t surprise me. The BBC likes to be platform natural so don’t tend to mention services that aren’t on Cable or especially Freeview. It’s also difficult to know what context you’d mention it in, it’s not a simple thing to explain and of little benefit to people as very few would want the news from another region over their own. Perhaps useful if you’ve moved to another part of the country but the all the caveats and small overall benefit make it not really worthwhile plugging.

They often plug a regional Inside Out programme, and say if you are out of area you can watch it on 'iplayer'.

If they have the facility, it's odd it's never publicised, where as other things are rammed down our throats !

Lucky for us there is now a provision for that on iPlayer. Though I am mystified as to why allow UK regional variations be made FTA whereas US media practitioners take a dim view of subscribers who want to view local stations not intended for their viewing area/market (e.g. an LA resident wants to watch a New York or Seattle version of NBC but can’t).

Well, ITV are the same here, because they don't want you watching the 'wrong' ads. As the BBC are totally publicly funded, every licence payer should have the right to see and hear everything they are paying for, (where it's reasonably practical to do so)

Of course all the ITV regions are FTA too, it's just that you only get you 'intended one' in the EPG. It's easy enough to view other regions if you want to, but 99% of the punters won't bother or know how to.

Let me just ask: are there any variations in ads between different ITV regions?

Yes

Often a national chain will list the stores in that ITV region - I know some of the furniture stores do, and back when they existed Toys R Us did.

Yes, but they are rendered somewhat redundant by the HD channels that play out commercials for companies in Staffordshire to viewers living not far from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Not *that* close - viewers in Scotland would be watching STV. I get your point though.