Channel Four pulls out of QuizCall

Notice earlier tonight (around 7pm) Quizcall was off the air and the (completly out of date) promo was playing. Back now though!


And Freeview isn't rid of it completly - they've secured some airtime on FTN - not sure if this is replacing Quiz Night Live or in addition to it.


FTN has never been the best channel, but any potential it did have has been completly wiped out by sticking Quiz TV programmes on in near enough primetime.

With content from Living, Bravo, Challenge and Trouble there is potential there for a half decent alternative line up in primetime - but Quiz Night Live, along with endless Most Haunted repeats, virtually eliminates that!

Quiz Call starts at 8pm now

Seems more political to me - they've had More 4+1 temporarily on DTT before, so to return it for a another temporary stay may make it appear that More4 itself is an uninmportant channel. FilmFour +1 is at least something new (or as new as a timeshifted channel can get anyway).


E4+1 is not on Mux 2, and they don't seem to care that it's broadcast at a higher resolution (and also in weak signal areas is more likely to be received) than E4 itself, so who cares to say what they might do with FilmFour.

According to QuizTelly.com, the channel is now under new management (owned by iTouch, a public voting specialist company) and therefore they've dumped a load of staff and reduced the broadcasting hours. Therefore the obscenely out of date promo will now probably air 18hrs a day until it's pulled from Freeview on either the 12th or the 15th depending on what you read.



Apparently its replacing it. So Ftn is dumping Quiz Night Live (which was a blatant money spinner because they never seem to give any money away) in favour of Quiz Call (which is also a money spinner but they do seem to give away more cash).



It's because Ftn can be seen on Sky and Cable, which all carry the other Flextech channels as well so the channel is no longer the "teaser" channel for the Flextech package it used to be on Freeview. Therefore it gets the leftovers of the rest of the family, hence early Most Haunted series and the odd cheap import or three.

The average person dosent know about Mux's, how many there are and which channels are coming from which one etc so why should the broadcasters care because to most people, its just another channel anyway

True (I've given up trying to explain to my parents why they can't get Sky News etc.).

However, not all people can get all muxes. Generally Mux 2 reaches more people than Mux C/D, but the quality of the streams is lower, meaning more interference.

So moving Film4 to Mux 2 might make sense to ensure it reaches the widest possible audience - but the picture quality would fall - and Quiz Call required a much lower bit rate than a movie channel would.


P.S. Unlikely I know, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Quiz Call cropped up on ITV Play at some point in the future - though I expect iTouch would probably rebrand it.

Whilst most people don't understand muxes, they DO help when explaining why people can get some channels and not others.

Muxes 2 and A are broadcast at 64QAM - which allows them to run at a higher data rate - but they are more difficult to receive in borderline signal areas. However Mux 2 is also usually on a frequency closer to the existing analogue frequencies in use in an area so if people are still using analogue aerials it should be better received than some of the other muxes, live C or D, which might be further away from the analogue frequencies.

I agree about the resolution issues - though ITV2 and ITV3 going out at 544x576 rather than 720x576 IS noticed by people when ITV2 shows 4:3 football in pillarbox - cos it gets near to 400x576 active resolution...

Im nabbing 4play, 4music, e4music and play4
Ha Ha

It will be Film4+1...

http://www.andrewjwood.eu/misc/film4plus1.jpg

Yeh i noticed a promo yesterday saying "Film4+1 Freeview 32"

Ummm... your own website's blocking it by sending a little "403 Forbidden - Bandwidth theft prevention" image...

Should only happen if you're accessing the page via some URL other than tvforum.co.uk - or else if you're using an anonymizing browser or one that doesn't send referring URLs properly. It's to stop bloggers and site owners using my bandwidth.

If you - or anyone else - is getting the 403 image instead of the actual image, please PM with the details (don't do it in this thread) as I'd like to see what I can do. Thanks!