Freeview BBCi multiscreen to add sport and weather
Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV The existing Freeview News Multiscreen service - accessed by pressing the red button on any BBC channel, entering '1001' and pressing OK - will be improved from the end of Frebuary.
Sports Headline and UK Weather will be added to the existing News headlines loop and 'featured story' slection. The digital satellite and cable services feature six screens, one of which is a BBC News 24 rebroadcast, so Freeview viewers will only be short of the 'entertainment' feed.
The news multiscreen service shared a physical video feed with the old quater-screen BBC Parliament service, which has now been retired.
Pete Clifton, Head of News Interactive, enthused: "This is a fantastic development for our Freeview audience, giving them access to up-to-the minute sports news and UK weather to accompany the existing news service. This is a very important platform for us, and I am delighted we can now offer even more choice on it."
Rahul Chakkara, Controller BBCi, added: "BBCi is the market leader of all interactive digital TV services and has rapidly become a core part of the digital audiences viewing. In December total platform reach across DSat, DTT and DCable was 14.5million, an increase of five million year on year."