Join Freesat

In Wotsat’s chat with Emma Scott, Freesat Managing Director, its beleived that 230 FTA (free-to-air) channels should be available by early 2009, but technical issues with Sky are limiting Freesat to launching them in batches.

Emma Scott told Wotsat:

We wanted to launch with them all, but it was not possible. We have got every free-to-air channel that wants to be on Freesat pre-registered already, and we expect to have have the full 230 early next year.

It’s slightly decided by a timetable set down with Sky, which concerns the uplinking arrangements so we do not interfere with their EPG and they do not interfere with ours.

The EPG data is an additional component which is added to the broadcast stream, and they were not able to combine it for all the channels in time for our launch.

We are unclear on exactly what technical issues for FTA channels could cause such delays?

In an interesting twist, Emma has said that there will be one exclusive Freesat channel. Shall we play a game of ‘guess that channel’?

Thank you Wotsat for the information.

According to Wotsat (What Satellite & Digital TV), an announcement of when channel FIVE will join Freesat is ‘imminent’.

Emma Scott, Freesat MD, told Wotsat that channel Five have settled issues with rights holders and will set a launch date shortly.

“Five are coming on this year and we are hoping for an announcement shortly. They would have liked to have been there at the launch, but it was not possible because of rights issues.”

Fiver and Five US are still not expected to be available on Freesat anytime soon. We were led to beleive this was due to available space on the tighter Astra2D beam, but Wotsat suggest its due to new terms with programme makers.

Thank you Wotsat for the information.

The 10 new channels mentioned in our previous post are now live on the Freesat EPG. They should appear automatically but if not, just carry out a re-tune.

If you’d like to let us know what Freesat receiver you have and whether a re-tune was required, please post below, will be interesting to find out whether they came on automatically as they should.

Its been announced today that 18 new channels will be launched on the Freesat platform late July and early August.

The first set of channels, launching Thursday 24 July, features a range of entertainment, news, shopping and gaming channels:

Zone Reality (channel 136)
Zone Horror (channel 138)
Russia Today (channel 206)
The Fight Network (channel 251)
Inspiration (channel 690)
PitchWorld (channel 804)
Gems TV (channel 805)
Shop on TV (channel 807)
Netplay TV (channel 851)
Gala TV (channel 861)

The second set, to launch Friday 1 August, consists of popular radio stations:

Capital FM (channel 719)
Choice FM (channel 720)
Classic fm (channel 721)
Gold (channel 722)
XFM (channel 723)
NME Radio (channel 727)
Insight Radio (channel 777)
BFBS Radio (channel 786)

Commenting on the addition of the eighteen new channels, Emma Scott, MD of Freesat, said;

Following last week’s launch of BBC and ITV regional variants, these new TV and radio channels further enhance Freesat’s offering and provide extra choice to viewers and listeners. This is great news for Freesat customers and something we will continue to do this year and beyond.

Maybe we should have called it “Hardly Street” after many reports of no red button to access the high-definition version of this new (and first) HD drama from the ITV, exclusive to Freesat.

We know that some regions have been able to receive the HD version, and given that most successful reports have come from London, the North West and Central, it would appear that its only worked on those ITV regions which were available from launch, not those that were introduced two days ago.

What a mess, Freesat should be very disappointed with ITV for not only the poor performance of this programme, but for learning from the mistakes of Euro 2008.

Why not post a comment below, providing us with your default ITV region, digital box brand and whether you were able to access it or not.

We wanted to get official word on this first, but as spotted by DigitalSpy member ‘mitsubishi’, it would seem that the following channels are transmitting broadcast data, which would suggest inclusion on the Freesat EPG shortly.

Channels include:

Gala TV
Gems TV
Inspiration TV
Netplay TV
Pitch World
Russia Today
Shop On TV
TWC Fight
Zone Horror
Zone Reality

One of Freesat’s FAQ answers sums it up perfectly…

You won’t be overwhelmed by all these channels

…your not wrong there, but still, its a start.

Press release from Freesat today:

FIRST HIGH-DEFINITION EPISODE OF ‘HARLEY STREET’ TO BE BROADCAST ON ITV HD EXCLUSIVELY VIA FREESAT

Harley Street, ITV’s brand new drama series set in the world famous medical hub of the same name, premieres tonight in high-definition on ITV HD, available exclusively through the free-to-air satellite TV service, Freesat.

Viewers can access ITV HD via the ‘red button’ when prompted on screen during the programme’s transmission between 2100 - 2200hrs.

Commenting on the first HD transmission of the programme, Emma Scott, MD of Freesat said; “It’s fantastic that ITV are exclusively premiering Harley Street in HD on Freesat. This is a major new drama that I’m sure will prove popular with viewers. Harley Street is one of a range of new high definition dramas, movies and sport from ITV that will be available for free on Freesat this year. This is brilliant news for Freesat customers.”

Freesat will today release the following press info in relation to the regional channels added yesterday. We’ve been given the information ahead of the media, for you guys to read (although for the most part we blogged about this yesterday).

Freesat, the UK’s free-to-air digital satellite TV service, today announced the addition of 22 ITV and BBC regional variations to the broadcasters’ line-up of channels which complement those available at launch.

The channels, which carry locally regional variations of ITV and BBC TV services including regional news and weather, will be available to Freesat viewers from Wednesday 16 July.

The channels will be uploaded automatically therefore Freesat viewers will not need to retune to find their regional variant – it will appear automatically as their default for BBC1 (Freesat channel 101) or ITV1 (Freesat channel 103).

Commenting on the channel launches, Emma Scott, MD of Freesat said, “We’re extremely pleased to be completing the roll out of BBC and ITV regional services on Freesat. These services are hugely popular with viewers and compliment an already strong channel line-up. We look forward to welcoming more channels onto Freesat in the month.”

Now obviously there are a few discrepancies, the regional channels became available at 2pm yesterday, not today; and also that not all Freesat boxes will automatically add the correct regions, some require a re-scan. Putting this aside though, its great news to have all the regions now available, so we can move on to the next most important developments.

It seems this afternoon most/all of the regional channels for BBC and ITV have gone live. Your default region should now correspond with the postcode you entered on setup. If you are still receiving the wrong region, you may need to carry out a reset/re-scan (Humax boxes need a re-scan, Alba boxes are automatic).

We’ve updated the channel list page, which now includes the BBC regions and ITV2+1. Note that ITV regions don’t have an allocated EPG channel slot.

An interesting read regarding Virgin leading commercial radio stations onto Freesat

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/…/virgin_leads_commercial_stations_onto_freesat

The main points worth mentioning: Virgin, as well as NME Radio, GCap’s Xfm, Choice, Gold and Capital Classic will be available on Freesat between July and September; and later this year, Insight Radio, British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) Radio and four stations run by Irish broadcaster RTE: Lyric FM, Radio 1, Radio na Gaeltachta and 2FM.

Emma Scott (Managing Director, Freesat) also makes mention to the release of the Freesat DTR later this year, and its ability to record and series link radio programmes, in the same way as you will be able to television programmes.