Yep, Freeview has higher upfront costs if you have to have an aerial installed ... £40 the aerial, £60 the fitting and about £50 the box ... £150 all in.
BT may charge you for installation, and Sky will charge you unless you sign up with one of their premium packages for at least a month (depending on what offer is on at the moment), so I suspect the BT/Sky combo could cost you at least £50 in the first month, plus a minimum of £15/month for the next 12 months for Sky's basic TV pack (total cost you paid for Sky after a year is £210 (11 months @ £15 plus one month at approx £45)) and for BT approx. £11/month line rental, £132 for the year. Something like £342 all together.
As for NTL - assuming they can service your flat, I've just been through their online ordering and the bare minimum you can spend at the moment appears to be £21.50 a month, with free installation, so that's £258 after 12 months, which includes your phone so is rather cheaper than BT/Sky and comparable with Freeview when you add the likely £150 set-up cost of Freeview to the 12 months line rental from BT.
So, very very roughly, the total costs after 12 months are, I think, something like this:
BT/Freeveiw: £280
BT/Sky: £342
NTL: £258
Of course, after 12 months you continue to pay a minimum of £21.50 for NTL, £26 for BT/Sky or £11 for BT/Freeview (cos the Freeview bit is free!) So all together, if you are sure you don't want any of the premium channels, Freeview is cheaper in the long run.
That was a rather messy post, sorry ... but I hope it's useful.
