MI
Who on Earth wrote the following as "news" on the BBC website - a junior hack with all the researching skills of a dead squid?
"Movie studio Universal has signed a deal to offer movies on demand to the Freeview pay-TV service Top Up TV."
Failing to distinguish the fact that Freeview cannot have a pay-TV service, but DTT can - as Freeview and TUTV are not platforms, just services on the DTT platform.
Top Up TV launched in March 2004 and offers 11 extra channels, including UKTV Gold, MTV, Paramount Comedy and British Eurosport, to Freeview viewers who pay an additional subscription fee.
MTV and Paramount Comedy may be offered on the new Anytime service, which has considerably more than 11 channels, but we never saw them on the old, linear service.
"Freeview customers have not had premium movies for nearly five years," said Top Up TV's chief executive Ian West.
Yes - unless you count the offerings by Film4 in the last 6 weeks. Futhermore, Freeview doesn't have customers as such - just viewers. BBC1, 2 etc don't have customers. And the reason DTT doesn't have premium movies is because ITV Digital - another DTT pay service - fecked it up in the first place.
"Movie studio Universal has signed a deal to offer movies on demand to the Freeview pay-TV service Top Up TV."
Failing to distinguish the fact that Freeview cannot have a pay-TV service, but DTT can - as Freeview and TUTV are not platforms, just services on the DTT platform.
Top Up TV launched in March 2004 and offers 11 extra channels, including UKTV Gold, MTV, Paramount Comedy and British Eurosport, to Freeview viewers who pay an additional subscription fee.
MTV and Paramount Comedy may be offered on the new Anytime service, which has considerably more than 11 channels, but we never saw them on the old, linear service.
"Freeview customers have not had premium movies for nearly five years," said Top Up TV's chief executive Ian West.
Yes - unless you count the offerings by Film4 in the last 6 weeks. Futhermore, Freeview doesn't have customers as such - just viewers. BBC1, 2 etc don't have customers. And the reason DTT doesn't have premium movies is because ITV Digital - another DTT pay service - fecked it up in the first place.
WI
Oh you are naughty Alexia.......but I like you! Your post made me laugh!
Alexia posted:
Who on Earth wrote the following as "news" on the BBC website - a junior hack with all the researching skills of a dead squid?
"Movie studio Universal has signed a deal to offer movies on demand to the Freeview pay-TV service Top Up TV."
Failing to distinguish the fact that Freeview cannot have a pay-TV service, but DTT can - as Freeview and TUTV are not platforms, just services on the DTT platform.
Top Up TV launched in March 2004 and offers 11 extra channels, including UKTV Gold, MTV, Paramount Comedy and British Eurosport, to Freeview viewers who pay an additional subscription fee.
MTV and Paramount Comedy may be offered on the new Anytime service, which has considerably more than 11 channels, but we never saw them on the old, linear service.
"Freeview customers have not had premium movies for nearly five years," said Top Up TV's chief executive Ian West.
Yes - unless you count the offerings by Film4 in the last 6 weeks. Futhermore, Freeview doesn't have customers as such - just viewers. BBC1, 2 etc don't have customers. And the reason DTT doesn't have premium movies is because ITV Digital - another DTT pay service - fecked it up in the first place.
"Movie studio Universal has signed a deal to offer movies on demand to the Freeview pay-TV service Top Up TV."
Failing to distinguish the fact that Freeview cannot have a pay-TV service, but DTT can - as Freeview and TUTV are not platforms, just services on the DTT platform.
Top Up TV launched in March 2004 and offers 11 extra channels, including UKTV Gold, MTV, Paramount Comedy and British Eurosport, to Freeview viewers who pay an additional subscription fee.
MTV and Paramount Comedy may be offered on the new Anytime service, which has considerably more than 11 channels, but we never saw them on the old, linear service.
"Freeview customers have not had premium movies for nearly five years," said Top Up TV's chief executive Ian West.
Yes - unless you count the offerings by Film4 in the last 6 weeks. Futhermore, Freeview doesn't have customers as such - just viewers. BBC1, 2 etc don't have customers. And the reason DTT doesn't have premium movies is because ITV Digital - another DTT pay service - fecked it up in the first place.
Oh you are naughty Alexia.......but I like you! Your post made me laugh!
CW
cwathen
Founding member
So, it appears that this might be it for Top Up TV. I was one of the very first subscribers, fighting their corner before they had launched (as TVF's archive will testify) and being able to take advantage of things like not paying £20 for connection or being required to pay a month in advance. So now, I feel the need to fight their corner once again...
At the time of launch, they did have something to offer which FTA DTT did not provide. Things were different then - Freeview was a marketing concept launching less than 18 months previously and it's website was still promoting FTN as a credible general entertainment channel. UK Gold was still UK Gold and not UKTV Gold, ITV3 and 4 did not yet exist (and Granada Plus had not yet closed down), Sky was not interested in providing anything other than Sky Travel in addition to it's news channels, and C4 was still firmly entrenched in seeing their future in pay TV.
These were the days when the Freeview website promoted pap like UK Bright Ideas as entertainment and claimed QVC, Bid-Up TV, and their ilk as being 'lifestyle' channels.
TUTV launched offering you channels like UK Gold (when it wasn't quite as dire as it is now), Discovery and E4 (when it was still firmly a pay TV channel with premium programming). At the time it did genuinely bring something to the DTT platform which the FTA channels had failed to deliver.
It's had many detractors painting pictures of it's demise, claiming firstly that it was a pipe dream that would never launch, then that it would never last more than a month because it would rely on ex-ITV Digital equipment and no company would be daft enough to make new boxes for it, then that it wouldn't last 6 months, then that it wouldn't see it's first birthday, then that it wouldn't survive the loss of E4 to FTA. But it's seen all of them off, and two and a half years later, it's still here.
It now appear that it's ultimate demise (which I accept myself as somewhat inevitable) will not be down to unviability or lack of interest in the service itself, but due to having it's transmission space forcibly removed from it because it only ever leased space from other broadcasters and never held a multiplex service licence.
And even now, despite all the claims of TUTV being unviable, they are still respected enough by their technology partners (and presumably their financers too) to be in a position to try going down a different route with their PVR service. I myself don't feel that TUTV Anytime will have a hope in hell of working out, but at least they are still in a position to try it (and if it does work out I will welcome the opportunity to eat my words).
This to me only proves a point I first made over two years ago - it *IS* viable to have pay TV on DTT despite the collapse of ITV Digital, and the ITC *should* have supported the Freeview/Freeview Plus bid which allowed for the provision of a single multiplex service to be held by a pay TV operator in order to develop a more limited pay TV service on the DTT platform.
I accept that Top Up TV has almost certainly failed and collapse is inevitable. But it has not failed through lack of interest or takeup - it has failed because the decision taken by the ITC in 2002 meant that it was forced to operate under conditions which always put the operation at risk if C5 ever wanted to spread it's wings. They've done it, and it has.
TUTV may well have been more influential in the development of Freeview than many of it's detractors ever had realised. To my mind, their launch spelled out some home truths to DTV Services Ltd (those behind the Freeview brand) - that you can only package poor quality channels as being the best thing since sliced bread on a website for so long before the audience wakes up and demands higher quality programming - and TUTV proved that there was an audience there who were prepared to pay for it if necessary.
If TUTV had never existed, I do not believe that E4 would ever have gone FTA, nor would Granada Plus have closed and be re-imagined into ITV3 and ITV4. And without those developments, I doubt their would be much interest in broadcasters wondering whether they could make more money for advertising revenues over a larger audience than they could from subscription revenues over a smaller audience which has lead to all the other new channels since.
Before TUTV's launch, Freeview in the better part of a year and a half had delivered nothing following it's launch other than CBM - a channel which broadcast a promo card for months on end before dissapearing, and some vague non-channel called Daytime from Disney (which eventually launched as ABC1 over a year after it was first anticipated). Before TUTV's launch, tacky shopping channels like Ideal World were able to claim broadcast space on multiplexes C and D for a knockdown price. The present situation when a 'Freeview slot' sells for megabucks and is a major media event did not exist - DTT was a cheap option for cheap channels. Would the present situation where it provides a reasonable channel lineup and broadcasters are seriously interested in it still exist without TUTV ever existing? Whilst I'm sure the Freeview fanboys would claim so, I would argue that it would not.
To my mind, TUTV has still proved itself against every criticism made against it at it's launch, and although I cancelled my subscription last year (not because I was unhappy with it, but because I moved into a house that had cable included in the price) and so the recent changes haven't directly affected me, I will mourn it if it goes.
At the time of launch, they did have something to offer which FTA DTT did not provide. Things were different then - Freeview was a marketing concept launching less than 18 months previously and it's website was still promoting FTN as a credible general entertainment channel. UK Gold was still UK Gold and not UKTV Gold, ITV3 and 4 did not yet exist (and Granada Plus had not yet closed down), Sky was not interested in providing anything other than Sky Travel in addition to it's news channels, and C4 was still firmly entrenched in seeing their future in pay TV.
These were the days when the Freeview website promoted pap like UK Bright Ideas as entertainment and claimed QVC, Bid-Up TV, and their ilk as being 'lifestyle' channels.
TUTV launched offering you channels like UK Gold (when it wasn't quite as dire as it is now), Discovery and E4 (when it was still firmly a pay TV channel with premium programming). At the time it did genuinely bring something to the DTT platform which the FTA channels had failed to deliver.
It's had many detractors painting pictures of it's demise, claiming firstly that it was a pipe dream that would never launch, then that it would never last more than a month because it would rely on ex-ITV Digital equipment and no company would be daft enough to make new boxes for it, then that it wouldn't last 6 months, then that it wouldn't see it's first birthday, then that it wouldn't survive the loss of E4 to FTA. But it's seen all of them off, and two and a half years later, it's still here.
It now appear that it's ultimate demise (which I accept myself as somewhat inevitable) will not be down to unviability or lack of interest in the service itself, but due to having it's transmission space forcibly removed from it because it only ever leased space from other broadcasters and never held a multiplex service licence.
And even now, despite all the claims of TUTV being unviable, they are still respected enough by their technology partners (and presumably their financers too) to be in a position to try going down a different route with their PVR service. I myself don't feel that TUTV Anytime will have a hope in hell of working out, but at least they are still in a position to try it (and if it does work out I will welcome the opportunity to eat my words).
This to me only proves a point I first made over two years ago - it *IS* viable to have pay TV on DTT despite the collapse of ITV Digital, and the ITC *should* have supported the Freeview/Freeview Plus bid which allowed for the provision of a single multiplex service to be held by a pay TV operator in order to develop a more limited pay TV service on the DTT platform.
I accept that Top Up TV has almost certainly failed and collapse is inevitable. But it has not failed through lack of interest or takeup - it has failed because the decision taken by the ITC in 2002 meant that it was forced to operate under conditions which always put the operation at risk if C5 ever wanted to spread it's wings. They've done it, and it has.
TUTV may well have been more influential in the development of Freeview than many of it's detractors ever had realised. To my mind, their launch spelled out some home truths to DTV Services Ltd (those behind the Freeview brand) - that you can only package poor quality channels as being the best thing since sliced bread on a website for so long before the audience wakes up and demands higher quality programming - and TUTV proved that there was an audience there who were prepared to pay for it if necessary.
If TUTV had never existed, I do not believe that E4 would ever have gone FTA, nor would Granada Plus have closed and be re-imagined into ITV3 and ITV4. And without those developments, I doubt their would be much interest in broadcasters wondering whether they could make more money for advertising revenues over a larger audience than they could from subscription revenues over a smaller audience which has lead to all the other new channels since.
Before TUTV's launch, Freeview in the better part of a year and a half had delivered nothing following it's launch other than CBM - a channel which broadcast a promo card for months on end before dissapearing, and some vague non-channel called Daytime from Disney (which eventually launched as ABC1 over a year after it was first anticipated). Before TUTV's launch, tacky shopping channels like Ideal World were able to claim broadcast space on multiplexes C and D for a knockdown price. The present situation when a 'Freeview slot' sells for megabucks and is a major media event did not exist - DTT was a cheap option for cheap channels. Would the present situation where it provides a reasonable channel lineup and broadcasters are seriously interested in it still exist without TUTV ever existing? Whilst I'm sure the Freeview fanboys would claim so, I would argue that it would not.
To my mind, TUTV has still proved itself against every criticism made against it at it's launch, and although I cancelled my subscription last year (not because I was unhappy with it, but because I moved into a house that had cable included in the price) and so the recent changes haven't directly affected me, I will mourn it if it goes.
BR
Interesting read - so interesting I read it all in fact!
I agree with you on the Freeview/Freeview Plus bid being superior to the eventual winning bid from the BBC (they nicked the name) - and I'm sure the only reason it failed was due to the involvement of ITV.
And unlike the BBC venture, the ITV/C4 "Freeview" bid not only had additional room for their own channels, they also made space for the BBC's - something the BBC didn't do for them! It's all swings and roundabouts but More4 would probably have arrived a couple of years earlier, the ITV News Channel would have been boosted by regional content and also both ITV and C4 would have offered additional interactive services.
Anyhow, in the end I think the current Freeview hasn't turned out that bad at all, mainly due certainly to C4's change in attitude, and to a lesser extent ITV's additional channels.
There is still too much shopping channel crap, but I think now even without the premium services Freeview is now a very viable alternative to Sky and the only change I'd like to see it the multiplex's balanced out better so ITV and C4 (and Five/SDN) aren't operating with 8 channels on a mux while the BBC has just four!
There are 36 channels currently on Freeview, and Mux D has shown you can comfortably get 6 channels on a mux - so the maths is pretty simple there!
cwathen posted:
This to me only proves a point I first made over two years ago - it *IS* viable to have pay TV on DTT despite the collapse of ITV Digital, and the ITC *should* have supported the Freeview/Freeview Plus bid which allowed for the provision of a single multiplex service to be held by a pay TV operator in order to develop a more limited pay TV service on the DTT platform.
Interesting read - so interesting I read it all in fact!
I agree with you on the Freeview/Freeview Plus bid being superior to the eventual winning bid from the BBC (they nicked the name) - and I'm sure the only reason it failed was due to the involvement of ITV.
And unlike the BBC venture, the ITV/C4 "Freeview" bid not only had additional room for their own channels, they also made space for the BBC's - something the BBC didn't do for them! It's all swings and roundabouts but More4 would probably have arrived a couple of years earlier, the ITV News Channel would have been boosted by regional content and also both ITV and C4 would have offered additional interactive services.
Anyhow, in the end I think the current Freeview hasn't turned out that bad at all, mainly due certainly to C4's change in attitude, and to a lesser extent ITV's additional channels.
There is still too much shopping channel crap, but I think now even without the premium services Freeview is now a very viable alternative to Sky and the only change I'd like to see it the multiplex's balanced out better so ITV and C4 (and Five/SDN) aren't operating with 8 channels on a mux while the BBC has just four!
There are 36 channels currently on Freeview, and Mux D has shown you can comfortably get 6 channels on a mux - so the maths is pretty simple there!
NJ
And it's being (or has been) broadcast in squashyvision. Broadcasting the thing in letterbox mode with a widescreen flag that shouldn't be there, so the presentation looks like a film shot on 2:35:1 ratio, only looking a bit squashed.
Neil Jones
Founding member
nwtv2003 posted:
The Top Up TV Anytime Promo channel (Ch 41) has gone live this morning, it's just a 10 minute loop offering the service, and a look at content, the EPG and the price of it all.
And it's being (or has been) broadcast in squashyvision. Broadcasting the thing in letterbox mode with a widescreen flag that shouldn't be there, so the presentation looks like a film shot on 2:35:1 ratio, only looking a bit squashed.
SN
IMO, all the freeview space should be made available to non-paying viewers, and Top Up TV should give up now.
Just a question, how many 24 hour slots are available on DTT?
Just a question, how many 24 hour slots are available on DTT?
BR
Mux C still actually has just 5 channels - I think it's capable for 6, but it's possible Sky actually have the rights to use it as IIRC they can use up to 75% of the mux.
Therefore it's 36 channels - and hence why I think they'd be better off just sorting out the platform so it's more evenly balanced with 6 channels on each mux. Then, hopefully on days like today when the weather isn't slightly dodgy I wouldn't lose reception on the ITV/C4 mux and the SDN mux!
Therefore it's 36 channels - and hence why I think they'd be better off just sorting out the platform so it's more evenly balanced with 6 channels on each mux. Then, hopefully on days like today when the weather isn't slightly dodgy I wouldn't lose reception on the ITV/C4 mux and the SDN mux!