FTN

A few weeks back I sent an email to the freeview channel FTN about their deterioration in decent programming - notably I was angry about Quiz Night Live and Thomas Cook TV. Here is their reply....



Well I say break the contract with Thomas Cook TV - again, its all about making MONEY!

Well they can't run a channel on fresh air, you know. Give them a break, they owe you nothing.

FTN certainly filled a niche on DTT for it's first couple of years, but I can't see a way out of their current situation. What incentive is there for Flextech to gain a concience for something approaching quality broadcasting instead of shameless cash spinning? I hope NTL will end up being nothing less than ashamed of the channel and capitalise on their small terrestrial presence by showing PROPER telly

At least they took the time to repond to you properly.

It's not as if they were busy running a TV channel or anything.

I feel however that this is the price to pay for all these free entertainment channels. Along with every 'we're going on Freeview' launch, the channel promised the earth, but turned out to be something of a damp squib and was forced to go down the 'paid presentation' route that dogs US cable channels by showing a two hour block of Thomas cook.. It was showing signs of steady improvement but these were destroyed by ABC1 launching and with it getting rights to programmes which would have fitted well on FTN, and these days has to deal with ITV3, ITV4, Sky Three and E4 all treading on it's toes.

FTN doesn't stand a chance - it's all huge broadcasters, Flextech isn't. It's just going to keep getting worse. It probably can't even boost it's audiences by going FTA on all platforms because this would probably kill it - the channel is in all likelihood so much on a knifedge that it wouldn't survive the interim period between loosing subscription revenue and seeing increased advertising revenue through higher viewing figures.

FTN would stand a much better chance if it did what it was supposed to - showcase programming from the Flextech channels - Bravo, Trouble, Challenge and Living!

It's just wrong a major block of it's programming has been given over to Quiz Night Live, but like many fringe DTT channels while it began with programmes original to DTT viewers, it soon got stuck in the trap of repeating the same shows over and over again!

Thomas Cook TV has been cut though to just an hour since the launch of Quiz Night Live.

I think if they pushed QNL back an hour running from 11pm though it be alot better as it give them the 10pm hour to run programmes they couldn't air earlier in primetime.

A simple primetime schedule of airing programmes from say Trouble at 7pm, Challenge at 8pm, Living at 9pm and Bravo at 10pm would be a good place to start.


I think though most suspect that UKTV Bright Ideas and FTN would be quickly sacrificed by UKTV if they decided to launch a channel which would work well on Freeview, such as UKTV Sport.

I'd also like to see UKTV History replaced by something like "UKTV Mix", offering a mixture of programmes from the UKTV channels.

This was the whole basis for my email. Freeview being what it is 'Free' and only consisting of over 30+ channels - which do not include the popular digital Challenge, Living, Trouble and Bravo stations. It made me a little angry the fact that when they first launched (2003 etc) they did showcase popular programmes from those channels, but I felt that over the last few months it was as if they had completely chucked the towel in and thought forget it.

I will agree that, yes, they have shown timeless repeats over and over again, notably Bob and Margaret, and a huge variety of programmes featuring Grub Smith, but the Flextech team should have discussed this problem and dealt with it properly.

Similar to what Brekkie Boy said, with Ftn being on Freeview, broadcasting "the best" of Challenge, Bravo and Trouble (yes, and Living TV but surely Most Haunted is enough) will class it as a much popular channel. Plus with Bullseye coming to Challenge, it'll help the show as well.

However, as with most FTA 'showcase' channels, 'showcasing' means 'we'll show programmes from our other channels which A) we've made ourselves to avoid the expense of buying programmes, and B) aren't too popular/new, to avoid denting the popularity of the original channel', with very few exceptions (FTN showing old episodes of Most Haunted alongside new ones on Living TV is one of the only I can think of). Neither UK BI nor FTN has ever been an effective 'showcase' of material from other channels.