Another new Freeview channel coming soon!

Crown Castle have announced they will be adding a fifth channel to Mux C in addition to the space on Mux D which attracted bids rumoured to have hit £7m. Again it will be a 18 hour channel.

This leads to a couple of questions - doesn't this devalue the price of the channel on Mux D?

Also, will the BBC Mux's follow suit. I'd move BBC Four / CBeebies to Mux 1 with the other BBC channels, giving two spare slots on Mux B.

The BBC could either retain this to offer their full range of interactive streams for events such as Wimbledon, put BBC Parliament into full screen or be kind offer space to rival broadcasters, maybe specifically for interactive content.


It annoys me that the new CC channel will be 18 hour again - probably to fit in some kind of "public service" channel such as Teacher TV.

I'd prefer all these type channels to get one 24 hour stream - possibly all screening under the brand of The Community Channel.

BBC Parliament is also a waste of space IMO outside of parliamentary hours. It be better to see The Community Channel / BBC Parliament / Teachers TV share one channel.

What would be the point in channels swapping multiplexes? If it ain't broken...

Probably. It's rumoured that the existing 18 hour channel would be shared with the NHS channel, so maybe there's yet another one of these niche public service channels in the pipeline that CC already have knowledge of.

The Comminuty Channel actually is quite different from Teachers' TV and this forthcoming NHS channel. Community is designed to interest the general public. The Community Channel is an independant ventrue that also broadcasts 24 hours on other platforms so the name couldn't be used as an umbrella for all types of PSB on Freeview.



Believe it or not, some people do want to watch BBC Parliament in the middle of the night. Parliamentary hours vary from day to day. Some days it shows live coverage for 8 hours or more, and it needs the rest of the time to show all the other proceedings that were happening while it was showing live coverage. If it were to lose 9 hours of its broadcast time for Teachers TV and the Community Channel, it wouldn't be able to show everything it is probably obligated to show.

The BBC can't put anymore channels on Mux 1. It's some rule there is.

There was a suspicion on DigitalSpy that the reason the channels are 18 hours is that Sky own 25% of the space and Crown Castle own the other 75%. Not sure if it's true, but there may be some similar reason to that to blame.

Can't get to sleep?



They need to make choices then - schedule what is deemed to be more important. Alternatively they should do something similar to News Multiscreen - using the RHS of "703" so you can choose between the Lords and the Commons.

It wouldn't be a service I'd miss from Freeview if it went - but you do come across some oddities on the channel. The best I've seen is the public inquiry into public inquiries!

The BBC can't really increase the number of channels on Mux 1 in England, because they can't use statmuxing on BBC One without spending a LOT of money.

Currently BBC One in England is broadcast at a fixed, high-ish data rate (4.6Mbs) This is to allow each region to replace the sustaining BBC One Network feed, with a permanently generated BBC One regional feed (which contains regional opt-outs during some periods). BBC Two, CBBC/BBC Three and News 24 are statmuxed together in London and fed up as a single pre-coded lump to the English regions.

If they wanted to statmux BBC One as well, to reduce its data rate and increase the coding efficiency, they'd have to distribute high data rate versions of BBC One, Two, Three/CBBC and News 24 to every region AND install statmuxing and encoding kit for all 4 channels in every regional centre. This is a LOT of money to spend.

Crown Castle may also be upgrading their MPEG2 encoding gear to newer more efficient encoders. They can afford to do this as they only need 5 (plus a hot spare or two I guess) for each mux - a total of 12-14 encoders.

For the BBC to do this they'd have to install 6 encoders at least in EVERY regional centre. That is a purchase of over 90 encoders, plus you'd need to factor in the cost of distributing 9Mbs versions of the 5 channels.

This is a whole different ball game in cost terms...

I was watching a Lords debate on Female Circumsicion earlier.

Media Guardian are reporting that ITV & Channel 4 have been awarded the 2 new Freeview slots.

ITV is understood to have secured the first slot, for ITV4, which it is saying will be a rebranded Men & Motors, and will launch as soon as next month.