Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

Drama +1 looks like it's coming to satellite.

We know that UKTV is run as a separate commercial operation from the BBC so, just because the BBC part owns Freesat, it doesn't neccesarily follow that new & existing UKTV timeshifts will go onto Freesat to simply beef up it's line-up.

However, with full BBC studio involvement and the BBC's support of Freesat it does make any additional time shifts that launch a tad more likely to join the platform. Dave ja Vu and Yesterday +1 are FTV Encrypted as they are on a pan European footprint beam. There's capacity for these on UKTV's main transponder once Home, Good Food and Really move out as is likely after Discovery took full ownership of them.

Drama +1, Yesterday +1 and Dave ja vu would be welcome additions to Freesat, but I very much doubt that UKTV would put Yesterday HD and Drama HD onto Freesat if they decided to create them*.

Drama +1 appears to be testing on:

12.129 V SR 27500 FEC 2/3 DVB-S QPSK. Currently labelled as 25113 and showing colour bars and tone.

*On this transponder (which only contains UKTV channels), there are also two HD testcards that are currently FTA. I bet these will become encrypted, but you never know!

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

Interesting, Richard. Thanks.

I'm kinda surprised, I thought they might just continue to push UKTVPlay and get rid of all their +1s, as +1s don't exactly get sparkling ratings and the running costs would surely be less. And people are moving toward streaming and Catch-up over +1s.

The running costs for Dave Ja Vu on Freeview particularly can't be worthwhile, given that platform's relatively much higher running costs. It would surely be more worthwhile for them to make Eden FTA and use Dave Ja Vu's Freeview slot. Eden's ratings are by far the lowest of the UKTV Pay channels they still have.

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

The +1's are cheap to produce and allow channels to get more eyeballs on their adverts, so they can charge more and make more profit.

For those who record everything they can still be useful as, even with the 6 V6 tuners, there are still occasions where this isn't enough! They're also useful to have a further chance to record something if a recording is interrupted for some reason.

I take your point about streaming/catch up services though, so who knows how long the timeshift channels will continue.

I hope they are around for a long time to come, as I prefer to watch a recording over streaming, my reasons are that a recording isn't time limited, catch up services often don't have subtitles, I can't use Quickview and it's not as easy to control the stream as it is a recording due to the delay in the command being processed over the internet.

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

I agree with much of what you say there Richard. Especially regarding preferring recordings.

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

Drama +1 has now been added to VM, has it been added to Freesat too?

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

Thanks Richard ,

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

According to poster lovinthetelly on DigitalSpy both Ideal World HD and Create & Craft HD are carrying Freesat data now. So there's two additions.

The lack of this data, so far, on Drama +1, and that the other UKTV FTA channels haven't got their +1s on Freesat makes Drama+1 being add on its own unlikely. If they do it they'll add all of them at once, in my opinion.

---------- Post added at 12:58 ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 ----------

UPDATE. This tweet from Drama Channel's Twitter account suggests it's only Sky and Virgin Media that are getting the +1 version.
https://twitter.com/dramachannel/sta...50781179596800

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

Been showing various sports, enjoy while you can!

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

The following shopping channels have now switched over to HD on Freesat, according to lovinthetelly on DigitalSpy. To clarify, SD has been removed from FreeSat.

812 - 'Ideal World'
813 - 'Create & Craft'

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

Channelbox is coming to Freeview. I am not convinced this is likely to fly unless they put content that is worth watching on there.

Good idea, but crap implementation would be my view on this.

https://advanced-television.com/2019...s-on-freeview/

Channelbox launches on Freeview

[Extract]

Channelbox – a new streaming TV service that bundles a curated selection of free-to-air TV channels of various genres and languages – is delivering them to the Freeview platform (on channel 271) via OTT.

Channelbox includes such TV channels as France24, Hellenic TV, Faith UK, Retro Movies and Law&Crime. More channels will be announced in the near future.

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

Nick Jr is currently being shown FTA using the following parameters:

11.171 H, 22.000, 5/6, DVB-S, QPSK.

The channel is currently labelled as 51112. I doubt it's joining Freesat, so let your kids enjoy it while you can :)

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

Don't know if they will come to Freesat, but it's been reported that Yesterday +1 and Dave Ja Vue have finally gone FTA. As these are both owned by the BBC, I think it extremely likely that they will come to Freesat.

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

They are owned by BBC Studios, which is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC. That means it is entirely funded by the revenue it generates. Profits may subsidise the licence fee, but the licence fee may not be used to subsidise BBC Studios. While the strategy does now appear to be full FTA broadcast, the fact it is ultimately owned by the BBC is no guarantee of that in this case.

In the case of Freesat particularly, many channels have legacy contracts with Sky guaranteeing they will only be distributed with Sky encryption on the Sky EPG. In the past, this has allowed Dave to go FTA on Freeview years before getting into the Freesat EPG.

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

They might as well add them (and Drama +1 too) as it would enhance the platform that the BBC co own and increase ad reach. Now that Freesat has moved into making a profit, a huge chunk of the EPG fees paid for these three channels would probably be returned to the BBC as extra profit!

A deal was signed between Sky & UKTV in October 2013, so I think you're right about either Sky (or NDS encryption) contracts needing to be fulfilled before these channels could go FTA.

Re: One or two new channels coming to Freesat.
 

I hear that Court TV is going to launch on channel 177 in the near future

I would advise anyone with children or who is of a nervous disposition to take care when viewing this channel, even during the day. They often show close ups of things like the corpses of murder victims etc. I'm surprised that a complaint hasn't been made to Ofcom.