Join Freesat

The battle for free satellite tv is hotting up, but with what we know, how do things stand? Fair enough its hard to put both platforms to battle before one has even launched, but lets give it a go anyway

Working on the assumption that freesat are launching a standard receiver only (to begin with), they are going to have to compete with Sky’s existing £150 deal (BBC are presently claiming a £180 price tag) . freesat 0 Sky 1.

The freesat service is likely to have a much more reliable receivers, made from household brands like Humax. Not only will they function better, but they will probably look better too. freesat 1 Sky 1.

The freesat EPG (the channel listings and programme guide) is said to be very flexible, allowing you to tailored to suit your channel preferences, order, region etc. The Sky EPG is fixed and not very user friendly. freesat 2 Sky 1.

C4, C4+1, Five, Five Life, Five US, Sky Three and Setanta Sports News are all FTV channels at present, which means freesat won’t be able to access them. Fair enough the last few aren’t that important to most, but C4 and Five will be. freesat 2 Sky 2.

E4, E4+1, More4 and More4+1 presently remain subscription only channels, which means they can only be gained through a subscription to Sky, starting at £16 per month. As we are focusing on the available ‘free’ channels, whether that be FTA or FTV, we’ll not give Sky a point for that, as it costs to see channels which should be free anyway in my opinion. freesat 2 Sky 2.

So there we have, a draw!

(I’ll throw PVR and HD receivers into the mixing bowl once I have more details on whether they’ll be available from launch!)

As freesat is a joint-venture between BBC and ITV, naturally it means that their channels will be available on the new service, but what about C4 and Five? Despite what some think, there’s no such rivalry between the networks to prevent them signing up, nothing of the sort, the reason is that they are both presently tied into individual agreements with Sky, as the only available provider of their service via satellite television.

So will C4 and Five be available from launch? It doesn’t seem likely! Our sources tell us that the existing C4 contract, which includes C4, C4+1, C4 HD, E4, E4+1, More4 and More4+1 means they are tied up in contract until Autumn this year. Five, Five Life, Five US and the pending Five HD are in agreement with Sky until early 2009.

So what affect would that have on freesats launch? I’m still questioning whether the freesat launch will happen before atleast C4 get out of their contract! C4 have hinted at leaving the contract early, but can you imagine the implications of this, plus the cost to breach agreement that keeps Sky firmly in control of the satellite market. I can’t see freesat taking off with only 3 of the power 5 channels, can you?