Freeview EPG revamp from Oct 18th

The Freeview EPG will be revamped on Oct 18th, with a number of changes including moves for Childrens, News, Adult, Text, Interactive and Radio channels.

Here is the new (unconfirmed) EPG from the Digital Spy forums:

GENERAL ENTERTAINMENT
1 BBC ONE
2 BBC TWO
3 ITV1
4 Ch4 (S4C in Wales)
5 five

6 ITV2
7 BBC THREE
8 Channel 4 (in Wales only), TeleG (in Scotland)
9 BBC FOUR (from 9)
10 ITV3 (from 34)
11 Sky Three (replacing Sky Travel - date TBC)
12 UKTV History
13 More 4 (inc. Wales, S4C~2 moves to News section)
14 E4

15 ABC1 (not in Wales)
16 QVC
17 UKTV Gold*
18 The Hits
19 UKTV Br’tIdeas
20 ftn
21 TMF
22 Ideal World
23 Bid TV
24 Price Drop TV

25 TCM*
26 UKTV Style*
27 Discovery*
28 DiscoveryRTime*
29 UKTV Food*

32 E4 + 1 (moved from 39)
33 Eurosport (new LCN)*
34 Setanta Sports (new LCN)*
36 Xtraview*
37 Quiz Call
38 Men & Motors

CHILDRENS - moved from 30's
70 CBBC Channel
71 CBeebies
72 Cartoon Network*
73 Boomerang*
74 Toonami*

NEWS - moved from 40's
80 BBC News 24
81 ITV News
82 Sky News
83 Sky Sports News
84 Bloomberg*
85 BBC Parliament
86 S4C2 (Wales Only - moves from 13)
87 Community
88 Teachers’ TV

ADULT - moved from 60's
97 Television X*
98 Red Hot*

TEXT - moved from 50's
100 Teletext (previously on 9)
101 Teletext TV Guide
102 Teletext Holidays
103 Teletext Cars
104 Teletext on 4
105 BBCi
106 YooPlay

INTERACTIVE - moves from 700's
300 4TV Interactive
301 (BBCi)
302 (BBCi)
303 (BBCi)

RADIO - moved from 70's
700 BBC Radio 1
701 1Xtra BBC
702 BBC Radio 2
703 BBC Radio 3
704 Radio 4
705 BBC R5 Live
706 BBC 5L SportsX
707 BBC 6 Music
708 BBC 7
709 BBC Asian Net
710 BBC World Sv
711 The Hits Radio
712 Smash Hits!
713 KISS
714 Heat
715 Magic
716 Q
717 oneword
718 SmoothFM
719 BBC Radio Scotland/Ulster/Wales
720 BBC Radio nGaidheal/Foyle/Cymru
721 Mojo
722 Kerrang!
723 talkSPORT
724 3C
725 Premier

* Top Up TV / Subscription channels


Certainly required, but there are some odd moves. Don't see the point in moving BBC Four, putting ITV3 on 9 makes more sense. Also, why the News Channels are being moved when 40-69 is vacant seems pointless, while it's a shame they haven't put the shopping channels in a seperate category.

It's also strange how spread out the Radio, Text and Interactive channels are - surely the Radio channels could have gone in the 100's and the Interactive channels left where they were!

Also worth noting is no specific slots have been left for ITV4 and the ITV Kids channel.

I'm rather dubvious of that list, mainly because of Teletext being moved to channel 100. If I recall teletext has the same rights as the other terestrial channels have for a priority place. However it is possible, and channel 100 would fit in with the teletext numbers starting at 100.

While they do have the right to a priority place, as they now provide a teletext service for both ITV and Channel 4, it might be that they are prepared to give it up for a priority place amongst the text services.

Although parts of the above list seem a little dubious.

I always though when Teletext on ITV launched that ITV should have done a deal so in return for Teletext being on ITV, ITV3 got the ch 9 slot!


As I said before - that list is unconfirmed, and is provisional.

I don't want to turn this into a fantasy EPG thread - but basically I'd do the following:

1-39: General Entertainment - with ITV3 moving to 9, UKTV Gold moving to 24 (with other TUTV channels), then 40s: News, 50s: Children's
60s: Shopping, 70s: Text, 98/9: Adult, 100s: Radio and 700s: Interactive.

I just don't understand why they are leaving 40-69 blank!

well I don't like it. it's far too spaced out.

What about those without access to channels over 99?

I've never heard of a Freeview box which doesn't go above 99.

I mean, for example, the Sony IDTV that has channels from 1-99 (though there are apparently 250 but I can't access them!). 701 & 702 are put into the 90s however, do you think they would be squeezed in somewhere else if this change does happen?

Mine goes to over 800, alot of them don't even exist.

mine goes up to 801 but thers giant gaps. i dont think theres any need for reshuffling all the channels. and by the way, itv4 and itvkids arent launched until 1st november . . . .

They're probably leaving huge gaps in each genre ready for analogue switch off, after which there could, potentially, be four further multiplexes full of additional channels.

I suspect they'll only licence a couple of extras, but, theoretically, an extra multiplex could go on each of the BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1 and Channel Four analogue frequencies.

I rearrange the channels into the order I want anyway so I don't really mind what the official lineup is.