All posts by Mike Dimmick
Below are all of Mike Dimmick's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Kristina: For the next 10 days, BBC One analogue from Whitehawk Hill (and relays) will still be South Today, while BBC One on Freeview will be South East Today.
Everyone loses BBC Two analogue at the first stage of switchover. It's the one sacrificed to make way first. At some sites, it is necessary to move a different analogue channel to BBC Two's old frequency. This happens when the BBC A multiplex has been given a different analogue channel (not BBC Two), or where it would clash with that. This might still happen at relays even when there is no clash, if there was a clash at the relay's parent.
BBC One moved to BBC Two's old frequency at Salisbury, Till Valley, Poole, Cheselbourne and Horndean. ITV1 moved to BBC Two's old frequency at Whitehawk Hill and all its relays.
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Dave Sanders: On my Humax PVR-9200T, the Audio Description appears as a separate soundtrack. You have to press the Soundtracks button and select the other option. It seems to remember this setting for each channel.
Boxes that properly support Audio Description have an 'AD' button on the remote. If yours does, just press that to turn it off.
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Mark Agius: The figures appear to be proportional to the channel's share of viewing, as reported by BARB. As BBC One has the highest viewing share, its charges are the greatest.
The fact that the BBC don't want to be subsidising Sky boxes for subscribers, and are not using any subscription facilities, seems to have escaped Sky. The only thing that the BBC require from Sky's services is to provide the 'correct' region from 18 possible regions, for BBC One, and from four nations, for BBC Two. Because Sky have *other* customers with regional requirements (mostly ITV1 microregions, with different advertising), and those customers' region boundaries don't entirely match up, the BBC appear to have to pay for > 50 regions. That is also unfair and should be stopped, but fundamentally I still believe the BBC shouldn't have to pay anything considering that it is a legal requirement for Sky to carry all the BBC's channels.
The BBC are also paying for an additional EPG slot for every variant, in the 971-989 range. They could save money by dropping this (and arguably this is beyond Sky's legal requirement).
The region count could be reduced a bit if the BBC, ITV, C4 and C5 would get together and work out a common set of boundaries. There would still be around 30 regions because ITV1 has that many micro-regions for advertising: the broadcasters with fewer regions shouldn't have to pay for someone else's requirement.
ITV4+1 can't be carried because legacy Sky boxes don't have enough memory - their memory for channel storage is now completely full. Sky would have to break compatibility with those boxes. ITV plc could buy up someone else's slot.
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trevorjharris: Sky are legally obliged to carry the PSBs. Communications Act 2003 section 310: Communications Act 2003 . The law failed to set any terms and conditions for carriage, leading to this mess. Sky's requirement to carry does imply that the channels must be there to be carried.
The BBC's Agreement with the government states that they must "do all that is reasonably practicable to ensure that viewers, listeners and other users (as the case may be) are able to access the UK Public Services that are intended for them, or elements of their content, in a range of convenient and cost effective ways which are available or might become available in the future." Satellite and cable are then listed as examples.
For ITV1, STV, UTV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C, Communications Act sections 272-276 apply. Section 273 deals specifically with satellite broadcast. Communications Act 2003 .
You might not watch BBC One, but 84% of the population watched it some time between 20 and 26 February - the highest of any channel, compared to 72.9% watching ITV1, 66.2% Channel 4, 64.0% BBC Two, 55.0% Channel 5, and 21.5% Sky 1. This is precisely why the BBC's share of Sky charges is so high. It does appear that the PSB channels have a discount relative to non-PSBs (including channels from a PSB's stable), otherwise the BBC would be charged many times Sky1's chargeback. As a rough guess (since I don't have the viewing share figures that Sky used to calculate the rate), the PSB rate is something like 1/3 (based on the relation between ITV1 and ITV2's viewing figures of that week, and the rates charged). But it's still far too high.
Sky's published price list appears to show that all charges to all channels - PSB or not - have been reduced by 26.6%. Compare the 20 March 2012 price list at http://corporate.sky.com/…2012 to the one effective from 1 July: http://corporate.sky.com/….pdf .
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Bob: I believe the answer is no, you can't play back programmes previously recorded. This applies to all programmes, even if transmitted by a free-to-air or free-to-view channel.
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Mr J. White, Briantist: No, the BBC B capacity-reservation scheme is national, not regional. While "The Television Multiplex Services (Reservation of Digital Capacity) Order 2008" allows Ofcom to specify different areas of the British Islands in each application process, in practice they have so far only advertised for services covering the whole of the British Islands.
References: The Television Multiplex Services (Reservation of Digital Capacity) Order 2008 section 3(3)(b)(ii) and http://stakeholders.ofcom….pdf section 2.30.
In response to the first invitation to apply, Channel 4 made a joint application with S4C in which they agreed that S4C would serve Wales, and Channel 4 would serve the rest of the UK: http://stakeholders.ofcom….pdf . This is the legal basis on which Channel 4 HD and S4C Clirlun are running. S4C Clirlun does not, individually, have a Digital Television Programme Service licence - it is part of the Channel 4 HD DTPS licence. (DTPS and Digital Television Additional Services, DTAS, licences are listed at Ofcom | Digital TV Channels .)
Channel 4 were actually under no obligation to make this offer to S4C, they could have applied for a nationwide service. (Equally, so could S4C have applied for a nationwide service.) That is in contrast to ITV plc, who were effectively required to collaborate with STV plc, UTV Media plc and Channel Television, because the Order requires that any application from "Channel 3" companies represents at least 13 regional licensees. ITV plc owned (at the time) 11 regional licences and one national licence, STV plc owns two, UTV Media plc owns one, and Channel Television owned one. Since then, ITV plc have bought Channel Television, but that still leaves them one short.
In that first application, there were two slots available, and potentially four applicants: the ITV companies, Channel 4, S4C and Channel 5. C4 may have decided to invite S4C to join to improve the strength of their own application. The other companies were entitled to not just apply for an HD version of their traditional analogue service, but also for any new service, whether or not an HD version of any existing service, so had they been able to agree on it, the ITV companies could have submitted a second application to run ITV2 HD, for example.
Of course Channel 4 may have been 'encouraged' to offer the capacity to S4C, it may not have been entirely their choice!
I believe that if Channel 4 proposed to later drop S4C Clirlun, that would fall under section 19(3C) of the Broadcasting Act 1996 (inserted by section 7(3) of the Order). I think it's likely that Ofcom would decide that the variety of services was 'unduly diminished' - though I could be wrong, Ofcom have permitted Capital Radio and Heart to turn their accreted collections of independent local radio licences into national networks.
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Dave Lindsay: No, Ofcom don't have the power. When the multiplexes are originally advertised, applications must be accompanied by a technical plan listing the parts of the proposed area that will be covered, the timetable for achieving it and the means by which it will be achieved [Broadcasting Act 1996, 7(4)(b)]. The original technical plans only listed those 80 sites and that's all that is required.
The selection of those 80 sites were those that were easiest - main sites in the analogue network (50 sites) - and those covering important locations not otherwise served. Selkirk was a main analogue transmitter, so was included despite the relatively low population coverage. Some of the transmitters in the Scottish Highlands & Islands have even fewer viewers.
Ofcom then only have the power to vary the multiplex licence IF the operator agrees to it. [Section 3(4)(b) and 12(2)]. The exception is that when the multiplex is due for renewal, they can require a new technical plan, and specify requirements for that plan [16(4)]. Licences last 12 years.
The SDN licence was issued in 1998 and therefore was due for renewal in 2010, and was renewed with no changes to the technical plan. The ArqA and ArqB licences (C and D) were originally held by onDigital/ITV Digital and were handed back in 2002 when ITV Digital went into administration. They were then re-auctioned in a beauty contest. They run until 2014. However, Arqiva have already applied, and Ofcom have already agreed, to renew them on their existing terms.
Had the operators decided to take up the offer of the other sites, the frequency plan would have been drawn up to accommodate them in the spectrum retained for broadcasting: the lower released spectrum, C31-C38, would still have been released. Chances are that some smaller relays would have been shut down.
The Broadcasting Act allows the collection of a percentage of multiplex revenue. However, so far, that percentage has been set at zero. The only amounts paid have been the fees for applying for and renewing the licences, which were (I think) £25,000. Ofcom have stated an intention to start applying Administered Incentive Pricing from 2014.
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Briantist: The Ofcom and Digital UK documentation suggests that Hannington COM muxes should have reached reach full power on 22 February. They are still broadcast from the restricted aerial, however.
S Tames: South Reading is within the area that is affected by the restriction (though less than areas due east of the transmitter), and the Digital UK prediction shows that things should improve starting from 4 April, for ArqA, then 18 April for the other two. However, it still thinks Crystal Palace may be a better option, or at least easier to obtain reliable reception from.
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Dave: Rubbish, Crystal Palace is not, cannot, and never will use C44 or C47.
The restricted aerial is there to protect analogue services at the Guildford relay (a relay *of* Crystal Palace, true), and that restriction has been in place since 1998. All that's happened is that, since switchover, the PSBs are no longer subject to the restriction. The further round to due east of Hannington you are, the greater the difference between PSB and COM power levels there is. Some boxes cannot handle large differences between power levels, particularly on adjacent frequencies.
The most likely impact is that the COM services will be *less reliable* than the PSBs - it doesn't necessarily imply that you'll lose them completely, but it means that you're more likely to lose them or suffer break-up in adverse weather conditions.
The commercial multiplex operators *have* been permitted to switch to a less robust mode without a sufficient corresponding power increase, which does mean that some people outside the 'Guildford notch' will have a less reliable service than before switchover. I haven't yet asked Ofcom why this has been permitted.
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Friday 9 March 2012 5:56PM
Still £4.4m too much. Sky should not be using public money to subsidise acquiring customers.