Sky currently 'run' ch103 so they'll be absolutely no activity on there until November when they go on the EPG and 103 points to a channel on one of ITVs satellites.
In that case when/where/how have people on this forum seen this 'castle' test thingy????
(Edited by StandUpAndBeSeated at 3:57 pm on Oct. 21, 2001)
You bung those frequency details into your digibox and one of them was active the other week with a channel called 'Castle' - showing the 7 second loop.
I've not seen it since - it comes and goes according to some members. Hopefully, all three transponders will be activated (allowing us to select the ITV regions) soon.
And Jason, I've not heard anything since. I'm pretty sure they'll begin shortly (this Tuesday is the earliest I've heard and 19th November for the official launch on the EPG) but the rumours keep changing!
Castle TV is a loop, I believe, I haven't been lucky enough to see it yet, of an alpine castle. It is only available by entering the right magic numbers into the Add Channels menu.
It is being broadcast to test the ITV transponders on one of the Astra satellites. It is not clear whether NTL (who have the ITV uplink contract) or SES (who own the Astra satellites) are performing this testing.
ITV is unlikely to appear in the EPG (channel 103 and 800-81something is the current rumour) once it launches - sometime at the end of November. It is likely that ITV/NTL will be testing in a more realistic form throughout November, but these will only be available by Add Channels...
According to a friend of mine a week ago there was an FTA test of ITV2 on one of the 2 transponders (the one that the Castle testcard didn't appear on). You could not receive it with a Digibox however, you needed a standard DVB-S receiver with manual PID entry.
ITV's decision to drop its peak-time outing of The Premiership has cost the broadcaster millions of pounds in sponsorship revenue, and could force a cut price carriage deal with Sky for its ITV Sport Channel, writes Luke Satchell
Programme sponsor of The Premiership Coca-Cola has withdrawn from the original deal, worth a record £50m, and reverted to a secondary, much cheaper agreement, which was outlined when the original contract was signed. The secondary contract was based on the programme airing solely in the later time slot.
With serious concerns at ITV now mounting that the broadcaster's huge investment in football is not paying off, and with the advertising downturn worsening, ITV may be forced to agree a deal with Sky for carriage of its Champions League, Nationwide League and Worthington Cup coverage on ITV Sport Channel.
The latest round of talks between the two companies broke down in the summer over commercial terms, but with as few as 15,000 viewers tuning in to the ITV Digital channel for some Champions League matches, it may have to drop its price to gain access to the kind of viewing figures its investment, and its advertisers, demand. European football governing body UEFA has also expressed concerns over the size of ITV Sport Channel's audiences.
Subscribers to Sky would certainly welcome the deal, which would see ITV Sport Channel made available on the platform for £6.99 a month.
A spokesman for ITV today told Produxion.com: 'We want ITV Sport Channel on Sky. We are always getting calls from Sky subscribers asking why the service is not available to them. The problem is that our value of the channel and Sky's value of the channel are very different.'
MM
MillyMaster
When ITV1 does appear on Sky Digital, I gather that there is not enough space on the transponders to broadcast all the news sub-regions of various regions e.g. Carlton Central, Westcountry, Meridian. Does anyone know which editions of the local ITV news will be broadcast on Sky Digital for all the regions that have news sub-regions?
Don't know whether its new but at weekends Border in Scotland more or less follows STV's footbal programmes and Border England shows English football etc. Not like HTV Wales and West which are two totally separate channels.
Wonder if Sky'll show Border Scotland and Border England separate or maybe postcode-based like the BBC nations.
MR
MR GRAPHICS
All i have been told is there will be 16 ITV regional channels available to the whole of the UK, this service won't at present have the ability to broadcast split regions, viewers will receive the main news programme from their region only.
Talks are still underway, not sure if the ITV service will be scrambled, but doubt if ITV has anyway of controlling which regions the viewers receive, as far as i am aware only BSKYB who own the platform can provide this regional tv service by postcode. But no database has been set up yet for this to happen for ITV.
ITV Sport will be coming eventually to Sky Digital as will ITV2 etc.
