Loading ...Aug 15
C4’s new dedicated music channel launches today on Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview, but why not Freesat?
Contracts contracts contracts!!!
We can only assume that 4Music has fallen foul of Sky’s never ending contract over some C4 channels. When will C4 finally break free? When will Freesat be treated as an equal satellite platform?
So how long can we expect to wait until 4Music comes to Freesat? Anyone’s guess, no one seems to know the in’s and out’s of Sky’s contract with C4, we can only hope it expiries soon and Freesat push C4 and Five’s channels to the top of the list for inclusion on the EPG.
One things for sure, when Freesat finally get all C4 and Five’s channels, plus a PVR, its going to be a fantastic platform, not just a great one!
August 15th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Yep looking forward to 4HD and some channel 5 offerings, a C5 HD channel would be really nice as most of the C5 programing is from the USA it would be available in HD already.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Seconded.
I too would really like to see C5HD and also C5 US (prefereably in HD) also.
There are so many great programs on 5US that would be great in HD eg. CSI, House, etc
August 15th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Dont hold your breath for the C5 family - C5 have said that the main channel should go fta later in the year but there is no capacity on Astra 2D to allow 5US or Fiver to go clear.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Apparently the sky/C4 agreement comes to an end in October some time…..
August 15th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Does anyone know when Box TV (which includes 4music) agreement with sky comes to a end??
August 15th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
hey there,
im a little bit annoyed too, like some other people out there. Contracts or no contracts, freesat should have all the FTA (free-to-air) channels, which i think is a consumers right to have these channels with paying with subscription, as they are FTA.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Seems 4 music is under contract as its scrambled on sky.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
It seems to me that just about the only thing that will free up capacity on Astra 2D, and thus allow more channels to become FTA and available on Freesat, will be when some of the transponders carrying existing SD channels move to DVB-S2 and H.264 rather than DVB-S and MPEG-2. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) predicts that these two changes combined will lead to a massive increase in capacity, about 150-200%. So if you can currently transmit 8 SD channels per transponder, with DVB-S2 and H.264 you could transmit 20-24 SD channels on a single transponder. [http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/trev_300-morello.pdf page 6]
The bad news of course is that this will take a while to happen; Wikipedia gives unsourced estimates of 10-15 years :/ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-S2]
August 15th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Why did ANYONE expect 4M to go clear? Its nothing more than a rebrand for The Hits, so the encryption contract governing TH is still in force until it expires or C4 come to an agreement with Sky to get rid of it.
August 16th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I Received this email on the 1st August (was posted in DS)
Dear Mr xxxx,
Thank you for contacting Channel 4 Viewer Enquiries regarding 4MUSIC.
At present we do not have many details regarding this new channel; however,
we do believe it will be available on Freesat but we do not have any launch
dates available. If you contact us again in the future we should have more
details available.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact us here at Channel 4 and for
your interest in our programming.
Regards,
Penny Watson
Channel 4 Viewer Enquiries
we do believe it will be available on Freesat???
So it will more likely will be on freesat sometime soon, once things have been sorted out with sky etc. We just have to wait and see…
August 16th, 2008 at 11:34 am
As to the matter of capacity on Astra 2D, a good deal would be freed up if the encrypted channels it carries (i.e. those that don’t required 2D’s narrow beam) were moved elsewhere. If 2D was entirely FTA, and all the scrambled stuff was on 2A, 2B, 2C and Eurobird 1, then the outlook would be a lot brighter for Freesat. But that’s not going to happen, is it….
August 16th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Astra 2D isn’t the only satellite in orbit with a suitable spot beam. If capacity dictates, it could become financially viable for and older bird with such a facility to join the 28E gang. Who knows, it has been known for demand to warrant a new one…
August 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
why is all the channel 4 channels including more4 e4 and film4 on freesat but not 4music it is a free to view channel it would be better if you made it a freesat channel
August 16th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I assume you’ve read the above posts, its NOT free to view - its a subscription channel. You need to pay Sky to get it on satellite. On Terrestrial its FTA but that doesn’t influence satellite.
Glen.
August 16th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I’ve just had a look and yes like others have said 4Music is encrypted on sky freesat .
Personally i not the slightest bit bothered though as i dont watch any of the music channels anyway .
Just curious , Wonder how many people who are complaining about the channel not being free to view would actually watch it .
Or isnt that the point
August 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Admin, any chance of getting some PR of C4 to make a statement on where C4 lys with adding more services to the freesat platform or even giving a comment on when their contracts are to end with SKY. I do agree, it’ll be an excellent service when when the C4 and Five family of channels are avilable? Plus whenever this does happen will we not see more encrypted channels breaking away from sky, consisdering the amonut they have to pay for EPG slot and encryption services and just living off the money made from advertising!
August 16th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
TMK its about £30,000 a year for a sky epg slot - and to a tv channel £600 a day should in theory be chicken feed .
Picking some ballpark figures the sky platform is in 5,000,000 homes while freesat is in 250,000 homes (and thats being more than just a bit generous) .
Do the maths and decide if the £600 a day is worth it .
August 16th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
SKYEPG - you make a good point, but which of the two platforms do you think will grow more quickly? What will the figures be in 5 years time?
Also, while the £30k will mean nothing to the big channels like 4 and 5, it will be more significant to some of the niche channels. Some look like they were put together in someone’s basement. These are mostly FTA already, though.
August 16th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
5 years time matters not - as sky tv will always offer something that freesat doesnt have .
A good example of that might be a channel like ’sky two’ .
August 16th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
A sky epg slot for a tv channel is 75k a year PLUS a variable contribution depending on the value the channel gains from being on the platform.
The Freesat epg charge is about 30k a year
August 16th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
SKYEPG - Of course, in a battle of programmes or channels Sky will always beat Freesat, because it has all the channels Freesat offers put the subscription ones. I don’t think anyone would seriously dispute this.
But that isn’t what the real battle is. There are over 1000 channels transmitted in total, and over 600 free to air. How many people will continue to pay £16, £34, or £45 etc. per month when they can get a significant chunk of these channels for free? Freesat offers a far, far more channels than terrestrial TV for only a moderate setup cost. This is why Freesat will grow faster than Sky.
For the many people who cannot get freeview, or just people late to make the switch to digital (lots of pensioners), Freesat will be the first choice.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
SkyEPG, the latest number for Sky is actually closer to 8.7m subscribers I think (in the UK, it’s 8.98m in the UK and ROI), and Freesat will be very fortunate indeed if it already has 250,000 users.
And I did the maths: the £30,000 for a Freesat EPG slot divided by 365 is actually just over £82 a day
If Ross is right about an EPG slot on Sky being £75,000 a year, then that would work out to about £205 a day.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Other peoples facts and figures are probably correct as i only have a mild interest in the subject & thats kinda proved as i havent updated the skyepg.co.uk website for a couple of weeks .
As for the 600 FTA channels - lets be honest and say a fair chunk of them are rubbish and in some cases unwatchable - and thats why people pay sky the £16 a month or whatever .
I dont pay sky anything myself - but even if there was 5,000 FTA channels then people would still pay sky the £16 a month in order to watch the latest usa tv shows rather than only being able to watch dross or drivel .
A good example of that is the latest series of 24 starts this week on sky .
August 17th, 2008 at 11:50 am
The new season of 24 starts this week - scrub that .
Just had another look at the tv guide it just says that jacks daughter (kim) might be making a return .
August 17th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
i wouldnt bother about 4 music-a poor channel compared to the hits,much better music channels aired on freesat
August 18th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
First night was excellant Kyle concert at O2 arena.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Thanks for that Denis, rub it in why dont ya??? :o)
August 18th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
its crap of sky not putting the 4music channel free to air and i think othey make more money
August 19th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Whose Kyle?
August 19th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Thor - You only need to connect a freeview box as well and you have the best of both worlds.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:29 am
this may seem a silly question and please dont shout but feeds on from denis 30
at the moment i have one lead from my ex sky dish going into my humax.. when i do the simple search i get the basic number of channels and they start at 101,when i did the complex search i have almost 1000 chanels starting 5001 and all over the place and most are scrambled.
my question is can i split the signal at the end of the ariel and feed 1 into my humax and the second into my old sky box… and therefore have two options, i cannot run another cable from the dish as run the cables under the floors and already have 1 wireless sender unit so cannot have another
sorry big question and maybe in the wrong place
August 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
vikki, I’m afraid the simple answer is ‘no’. The slightly more complicated answer is ‘not really’. You can try splitting the feed from your single LNB, but your Humax and Sky boxes won’t be able to function completely independently of one another (though, if you don’t use them both at the same time, you may well be all right, just so long as the signal isn’t too badly attenuated by the split). The problem is that your receiver ‘talks’ to the LNB and tells it what to do (e.g. whether it’s supposed be receiving a horizontally or vertically polarised channel), and so you can’t have two boxes giving it conflicting instructions.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
If you have two scart sockets on the back of your TV you can use one for your Freesat box and one for a Freeview box. It may be that you have intergrated Freeview already in your TV, if that is the case it will be easy to switch between Freesat and Freeview.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
i have freesat via sky cable and humax connected via hdmi which is downstairs and i wirelessly send upstairs and or to kitchen
i have freeview from my dvd recorder via scart upstirs.
i did not know the thing on my dish was intelligent i thought it was the boxes. i dont want to have to keep going upstairs to watch 5 etc and do not want to have to consider giving a single penny to sky, i am a little disappointed at the lack of service, the hd is great but was it worth paying 150 for one great channel as the loss of others, if freesat could offer the channels we all want and need?? the boxes would fly and sky would suffer..
August 29th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
freesat has the five channels doesnt it? well I have freesat and we get five, fiver and fiveus which is as much as you get on freeview so…?
August 29th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
clare - sadly you don’t have Freesat then, as Five isn’t available on Freesat. Are you sure you don’t have Sky’s free service, also named Freesat?