Freeview and Freesat to merge

This should be good news for us Freesat viewers. Hopefully C4 will start to play ball and add 4HD and All4 back. Maybe we'll see 4Music go from FTV and back to FTA and added to Freesat too. Maybe we'll see the other FTA Box/Magic etc music channels back on Freesat.

Also another positive hopefully....freesat currently only has 1 pvr on the market....the 4k Arris box full of software bugs all over the place! Not much choice for Free-to-Air Sat viewers to choose from...Humax and others still make Freeview boxes....maybe Freesat will start to get so other set top box/pvr makes to choose from!

My telly has a satellite input and I tend to prefer using this (albeit non-Freesat) to Freeview. I get pretty much all the Freeview channels along with all the +1s (and not just the limited hours that they can have on Freeview) and stuff like CNN and France 24. So, pretty much as you describe, but I prefer it as I can reorder everything pretty easily and get rid of the shopping channels and religious guff.

You’ll only have one TV set, but it will be three times as big.

So this is Saorview for the UK. I wonder whether this 'merger' will make it easier to start a 5G powered IPTV broadcast system in the UK now that there's going to be a sole provider of FTA services. It'll be a lot easier for a third string to be added to an existing operator, rather than setting up a new organisation from scratch.

Makes sense for this all to be under a Freeview master brand. All these conflicting brands; Freeview, Freesat & Youview were a mistake. Freeview is a very strong brand & an IPTV version should use the established brand.

I always got the feeling that YouView was meant to be the next generation for Freeview, combining DTT and IPTV services under one platform. The problem is as an individual service where the service and its STB’s can be bought outright has been a flop. Where as it has only succeeded through BT, and to a lesser extent TalkTalk, effectively putting it behind a paywall, defeating the object. This probably being the reason to the creation of Freeview Play.

Youview was meant to be a walled garden .....
And it was seen as an IT project not a Broadcast (add on) service
Delivered over IP ....

Aw c**p. So that's one spacing issue, and probably a million arguments...

Freesat has a few more channels, doesn't it? Otherwise, I've never been sure what the advantage of picking it over Freeview was.

It does, but mostly channels not worth watching! I wouldn't install a satellite dish especially for it anyway. The extra channels don't make up for the lack of Channel 4 HD for me (and personally I miss 4Music, Now 80s & 90s and Clubland TV too).

I suppose if you're in a remote area where you can't get decent signal or missing lots of channels it's worth it then.

In addition, some people don’t have good Freeview reception or can only get the PSB muxes. Some might have a satellite dish installed but not an aerial. And there’s the fact you can watch other regions which is useful for some.

I find the Freeview channel numbers easier to remember so I have my TV in non-freesat mode with the channels ordered at the Freeview positions where possible. I have a motor so it wasn’t possible to use Freesat mode on my LG TV if I wanted to watch other satellites anyway.

I suppose in rural areas or the Crown Dependencies where the signal isn't as strong, it does make more sense to go with Freesat over Freeview.