Sky's Branding

Non HD subscribers would just see the HD channels shunted to the 800s.

The whole purpose of this reshuffle is to fix up the clutter and mess that has accumulated in the Sky EPG throughout its history. Also, it’s the most radical one as they’re integrating entertainment and documentary channels, moving up the kids section, and introducing a +1 section.

AIUI the most significant change is that it gets away from the 'all or nothing' SD or HD EPG decisions.

At the moment, in the UK (don't know about STV), ITV SD is on 103 with ITV HD on 178. This is because even though some viewers have their correct regional version of ITV HD available, because not all versions are in HD, ITV SD is mapped to 103.

In the proposed changes, if your version of ITV is available in HD, the HD version will be mapped to 103, and the SD version shunted elsewhere. This is a significant improvement.

It won't improve things for BBC One in England, but will for large numbers of ITV viewers, and I guess C4 viewers in London.

After these changes people in England will have :

101 BBC One SD
102 BBC Two HD
103 ITV HD or SD depending on postcode
104 C4 HD or SD depending on postcode
105 C5 HD

That is until the BBC start putting HD variants of BBC One in England on satellite...

I don't understand why the HD swap on ITV and C4 didn't already take place for people with a corresponding HD region given that BBC1 has been doing it outside of England and BBC2 has been doing it within England for a while now.

I think it is probably because until now Sky haven't offered it as an option with that level of granularity, and only in nations terms? (Unless Ofcom have a view?)

It could be that C4 and ITV were considered a single 'service' but BBC One and Two national variations were deemed separate services? (Particularly C4)

I wouldn't even wait. Move BBC One HD on Sky to 101. Then list the SD region numbers on the regional opt out barker screen - and you'll have no problem.

I'd wager that the vast majority of people who are watching BBC One HD on 115 are already used to clicking away from that channel to 101 to find the regional news when prompted.

It's not a decision the BBC or Sky can take AIUI - Ofcom mandate that the 'proper' regional version should be on the most prominent EPG position. If this is available in HD and SD then the HD one can take the slot, if the 'proper' regional variant is SD-only, then the SD version has to be there.

There would - or should - be no reason to list multiple channel numbers on the barker - as there would still only need to be one channel number allocated for the 'right' BBC One SD region (as now with the mapping to 101) ?

If there isn't an SD variant that precisely matches - I suspect the 'nearest' (who decides?) takes its place.

I suppose if you take out the clutter of SD/HD duplicates and the +1s, there is space in the 101-299 range for both Entertainment & Documentaries.

However, I do hope they keep them as separate genres. They merged Entertainment with Lifestyle a few years ago, adding Docs into the same genre makes no sense.

I can't say I'd relish leafing through pages of women's channels before finding a decent documentary.

I imagine the entertainment channels will still be mostly below 180 with the lifestyle and documentary channels taking up the 181-249 slots leaving kids to take the 251-299 slots. Without getting into a fantasy EPG style situation, has anyone tried making a list of the entertainment section of the EPG but without the HD/SD channels and +1's? How much room is actually being created?

A quick count of unique channels:
Entertainment & Lifestyle = 75
Docs = 18
Kids = 16

Far less than I thought, and I may be a few out, but they would all easily fit in the 101-299 range.

Perhaps then 101-200 will be for Entertainment, 201-250 will be Documentaries and 251-299 Kids so that leaves plenty of room in each section for expansion.

I wonder if the +1 channels will appear in the same order they currently are in the EPG or if they will be re-arranged to match in with their main channel, so ITV+1 would be X03, Gold+1 on X09 etc.

I hope so. That would be very useful!

One of the new Sky Q ads features the new glass Sky logo. And I'm going to say it makes the company look more friendlier than the previous attempts.