How does it show more recent films free to air when most companies have deals with Sky to have films behind a paywall? How does it work?
Like Fast and Furious 6, The Hunger Games, Pitch Perfect and Rio are shown this week. These are popular hit mainstream films that you'd think Sky would have the rights to?
Quite simply they have the rights. Sky had first run rights I think to most of those and Film4 picks up the FTA rights a couple of years later. Where it is a Film4 production it would usually premiere on Film4 first.
Ooh, at some point could someone explain what the FilmFour channels were like before 2006?
I remember seeing a free weekend in 2002 to promote the subscriptions, when they showed back-to-back The Seventh Seal,Bob le Flambeur, and Le Mépris, and they looked like the best film channels ever.
(Those movies would've been on FilmFour World, presumably? Which ended in '03.)
I remember back in the day how much of a nuisance Film4 became by keep cold calling you up giving you the hard sell to subscribe, I'm pretty sure it was about £10 a month extra too....and back then most of what they were showing was shall we say, rather niche.
I remember back in the day how much of a nuisance Film4 became by keep cold calling you up giving you the hard sell to subscribe, I'm pretty sure it was about £10 a month extra too....and back then most of what they were showing was shall we say, rather niche.
That was the point of it though - at a time when it was quite difficult to see a lot of independent, 'arthouse' or foreign language films, here was a channel specialising in them and showing them uncut, advert free and in their original aspect ratio for £6 per month. In the late 90s / early 2000s that was something quite unique and very appealing to film buffs. it wasn't quite as niche as you remember- whilst it was very different from the Film4 of today it had a really interesting mix of films, including some well known classics. I had the channel for a while on On Digital and it was an interesting alternative to Sky Movies which was more blockbuster focused then than the slightly broader range of films it now shows.
I remember back in the day how much of a nuisance Film4 became by keep cold calling you up giving you the hard sell to subscribe, I'm pretty sure it was about £10 a month extra too....and back then most of what they were showing was shall we say, rather niche.
I subscribed to FilmFour and didn't subscribe to SkyMovies. For me FilmFour was better value and showed more interesting stuff. I have a dim recollection that before it went FTA and on Freeview, and was still a pay-TV channel, there were a couple of FilmFour channels - one dedicated to classics, one to foreign language? No mention of it on wikipedia (but that doesn't mean anything of itself) - does anyone else remember this? (Or were they just branded blocks on a single channel?)
I actually miss the old FilmFour in some ways, as I dislike ad breaks in movies.
There was Film 4, Film 4 World and Film 4 Weekly if memory serves. Film 4 Extreme is also in my head but that may have been an themed slot on Film 4 or one of the other channels that closed when it went FTA.
There was Film 4, Film 4 World and Film 4 Weekly if memory serves. Film 4 Extreme is also in my head but that may have been an themed slot on Film 4 or one of the other channels that closed when it went FTA.
Yep - that rings lots of bells. I think Film 4 World was the channel I missed when it closed.
There was Film 4, Film 4 World and Film 4 Weekly if memory serves. Film 4 Extreme is also in my head but that may have been an themed slot on Film 4 or one of the other channels that closed when it went FTA.
Yes, for a while they advertised it as a four channel service: Filmfour, +1, World and Extreme (no idea what they categoried as ‘extreme’! Presumably more violent stuff). Eventually World and Extreme closed and Weekly launched which had the same 3/4 films repeated at the same time each night for 7 days.
One aside I remember is that they occasionally would air cricket/horse racing free to air on Filmfour when C4 was showing the other sport it was clashing with. Guess they thought E4 would be completely inappropriate demographic wise given that that was the only other channel they had at the time as it was pre More4.
One aside I remember is that they occasionally would air cricket/horse racing free to air on Filmfour when C4 was showing the other sport it was clashing with. Guess they thought E4 would be completely inappropriate demographic wise given that that was the only other channel they had at the time as it was pre More4.
One aside I remember is that they occasionally would air cricket/horse racing free to air on Filmfour when C4 was showing the other sport it was clashing with. Guess they thought E4 would be completely inappropriate demographic wise given that that was the only other channel they had at the time as it was pre More4.
Yes - definitely remember that too.
When Channel 4 won the rights to England home test matches there were headlines in the Racing Post (or another similar publication) about Channel 4 reassuring the authorities that when the two sports clashed (on a Saturday afternoon) theirs would take priority, and that is what (just about always) happened- Horse Racing stayed on Channel 4, the Cricket moved to FilmFour.
I remember the first time the Cricket moved to FilmFour they failed / forgot to switch off (or change to FTV) the encryption on Sky. I and many others were left with a blue screen and a message about subscribing!
