Quote:
Originally Posted by VirginMediaSucks
There's no reason (apart from capacity, I don't know) why Virgin Media couldn't rent bandwidth on the Astra system. That would liven things up a bit!
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If only it were that simple!
I have a satellite radio system (or rather I did have until it packed up yesterday
) with a motorised dish. I could receive over 2000 free-to-air radio channels and, if I had wanted to, a similar number of TV channels. If my receiver had some Common Interface slots I could also have received a selection of subscription channels. However, I couldn't receive any from Sky because of their proprietary encryption system.
Unfortunately, all this comes with a very primitive EPG. You can see what the current programme is for each channel and that's about it. Also, as channels come and go, it's a pain programming them in by hand all the time.
As I understand it, the BBC broadcast their own channels, free-to-air, via Astra but they still pay Sky millions a year just to have these put in Sky's proprietary EPG system. Mr Murdoch has been very clever and has all bases covered. This is why I think it is now time for Ofcom to step in.