Tenth years anniversary - what should we do to celebrate?
Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV With just 10.6% of homes to go though the digital switchover, with the final ones in Northern Ireland getting there on Wednesday, 24th October 2012, there might not be quite as much to do in the future.
However, 2013 will see the start of 4G transmissions and before this Scotland, Wales and parts of England that switched first will be having another little switchover.
It does look like there will be plenty to do in the years ahead!
So, I am now making this post to ask if anyone has any constructive suggestions as to what would make UK Free TV even better in the future.
I look forward to your comments.
All questions
In this section
Monday, 21 May 2012
You have expanded the area to cover the Republic of Ireland from just the UK.
So go International with France, Europe and the world.
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J
John Gleeson11:37 AM
At the moment I can't think of any useful ideas, but if I do I'll let you know. I just hope that I can pass on the following comments to you.
As it's the complete digital switchover later this year when the Northern Ireland region gets converted, switched over, do you know of any plans for the BBC to do a special programme commemorating the 70 odd years of analogue TV in the UK? I find a programme like this ought to be done. I dont expect ITV to do one. Perhaps there could be a very faint glimmer of hope that CH4 could! Maybe BBC Northern Island might be the place to look, which can be received throughout the rest of the UK via satellite, as that's where it all ends.
As the BBC has decided later this year to transfer all their childrens programmes to C-Beebies & CBBC to save money, why dont all their news programmes apart from the regional news, be transfered completely to their news channel, BBC News. I dont somehow see this happening as BBC1 is seen as their flag-ship channel & must still feel that they need to compete with ITV1.
Do you know if there can be, or likely to be any regional variations on BBC2 apart from those in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland? In the past when Wimbledon has been shown on both BBC1 & BBC2 when matches involving top British players have been on, the BBC in their infinite wisdom have decided that they must be shown, moved to BBC1, their so-called flagship channel. This has often happened at around 6pm when the national news, then followed by the respective regional news is on. If this were to happen now & the news programmes be moved over to BBC2 they would not be able to broadcast the regional news programmes, except in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. I find it difficult to accept the BBC policy for this as for many, many years now, that people that can receive BBC1 can just as easily receive BBC2. Long gone are the days when people would have to buy converters, or another TV to watch BBC2 like in the old 405/625line days. The mind boggles.
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Mark Agius: Interesting. I guess I would have to look around to source all the data. The RoI was actually reasonably straightforward.
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John Gleeson: Your mind should not boggle. The answer is in fact very simple indeed.
The BBC provides their services over several platforms. Let's just discount analogue for a moment as it's about to get terminated.
This leaves four digital systems:
1. Freeview - a terrestrial network of 80 main and over 1000 relay transmitters, of which the BBC runs one SD and one HD multiplex;
2. Satellite - using the Astra 2N satellite at 23.5 degrees east which supplies the free-to-air feeds for Freesat, Sky and anyone with a DVB-S/S2 satellite decoder;
3. Cable - basically Virgin Media, to which the BBC supplies the "head ends" with content;
4. Online - the BBC supplies various forms of live online viewing.
The BBC does not OWN any part of the transmission system, this was sold off years ago and resides principally with Arqiva. The satellite uplinks and network are provided by BT, the satellites are owned by SES Astra and the BBC leases capacity from them.
On Freeview, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the 15 English regions (see TV regions overview map | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice for maps) have the full ability to have "local" services.
However, on satellite, each "local" service has to be carried as a separate transmission. This means there are currently:
- 19 versions of BBC One (19 SD, 1 HD)
- 4 versions of BBC TWO (all SD)
- 1 version of BBC News
- 1 version of BBC three/CBBC (shared)
- 1 version of BBC FOUR/CBeebies (shared)
- 1 version of BBC Parlaiment
As the BBC has to provide the same service on satellite, cable, Freeview and online, the possibilities are limited by what can be afford over all systems.
So, the BBC has been moving, and is intended due to budget cuts (as per BBC Trust - Strategy ) to having *ONLY* local/regional programmes on BBC One and replacing BBC TWO's four services with a single UK one, given that it has about ten minutes a day of dedicated output.
Also to correct you, the BBC is *NOT* moving children's programmes from BBC One to *SAVE MONEY*, it is just doing what was planned all along, which is to have a dedicated under-6s and over-6s set of Children's channels. The money is ringfenced.
So, just as BBC three has replaced the a few hopurs-hours some-nights a week at 6pm BBC TWO "DEF II", with a dedicated service, CBBC and CBeebies will be there from 6am-7pm each day in every home.
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N
NottsUK6:08 PM
Briantist: Typo gremlins regarding the satellite info. Astra 1N satellite at 28.2° east.
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leslie
8:11 PM
Skegness
8:11 PM
Skegness
why is it i get told i can put channels on that are none freesat and yet i cant find any ty
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leslie's: mapL's Freeview map terrainL's terrain plot wavesL's frequency data L's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Josh
9:32 PM
9:32 PM
May I suggest a Taskforce style section which functions in a similar way to what this website: office.espadar.com (I'm not trying to advertise my website in any way, I am just showing an example to support my suggestion).
Basically, if there was any ideas about the technical ins and outs of terrestrial transmissions and changes to the EPG on Freeview etc, instead of people posting the ideas as comments on random articles, there would be a place on your website where all the ideas would be categorized and easy to find instead of searching through the articles for individual comments.
Since your website is already immensely popular, and some Ofcom employees might have secretly read the comments on this website, they are bound to notice the Taskforce section a lot more easily.
Also on this Taskforce, people would be able to post ideas into categories and vote and comment on each other's idea submissions.
Here is the source code for creating a Taskforce: tf.zip
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Tuesday, 22 May 2012
leslie: I presume you are looking at Eutelsat 28A & Astra 1N/2A/2B at 28.2°E - LyngSat ?
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Thursday, 24 May 2012
D
David Parker9:40 AM
Briantist
What I would like to see is the use of BBC3 and BBC4 to show more sport and leave BBC1 and BBC2 alone. The reason is I am not of tennis or football fan I hate them.So some of my choice of programs are Eggheads mastermind and the like.Which of course are taken off.
Ps Brian I know this is something you yourself have no conrol of it is one of my ideas
All the best
Davep
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