Just out of curiosity what of you think Freeview in UK,could work in USA?

[N5XZS]

What's your impressions on UK's Freeview FTA Ku band services, could it work after the silly mergers between Directv and Dish Network?

Would it take a bite out of overkill pay TV services?

I am sure all of us are sick of pay TV madness!

Maybe start our own FTA satellite service, a nice rebellion way to say against monopoly pay TV ecosystem!?

Let me know what you think.

Here's UK's Freeview link...

Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free

Freeview is the biggest TV platform in the UK, used in 18 million homes and giving access to 95% of the nation’s most popular shows, for free.

www.freeview.co.uk

 

[Keith Brannen]

Freeview is by OTA antenna, Freesat is by Ku dish:

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www.freesat.co.uk

Satellite channels:

Astra 2E/2F/2G at 28.3°E - LyngSat

www.lyngsat.com

Neither would work here, too many extremely greedy companies, including all the OTA channels. Whether something like that might have worked 20-30 years ago, is hard to say, but, again, unlikely (that's what cable and satellite services were for). Now with the constant buyout and consolidation into huge monopolies, and squeezing out the last dime from re-broadcasters and consumers, sadly, its too big of a mess for something like these services to actually benefit consumers.

 

[N5XZS]

Yes, should have posted Freesat instead of Freeview!

But nevertheless, it's still a good idea to have USA, version of Freesat, Pluto style formats.

 

[N5XZS]

Interesting to see couple birds Astra covering from low as 10.7 all the way up to 12.750 GHz!

Quite a spread out, and as I have yet to see closest version what we have in NA regions for various bird bundled together and covering all the Ku band frequencys 10.7 to 12.750 GHz...

 

[TNGuy84]

The whole Dish/DirecTV is just trying to give the dying satellite pay TV format just enough steam to last maybe a decade before it dies off. Since it's a financial firm running the two companies, they might do like other financial firms that killed off the likes of Toys "R" Us and gut it for everything to try to profiteer on its death. (Sears anyone?) DirecTV's current leadership stated that there would be no more plans to launch any satellites. Since satellites have an average lifespan of 15 years according to Google, I can see them juggling around usable satellites until they die off one by one.

 

[Pepper]

A large portion of what's on FreeSat is equivalent to local broadcast channels here. Some (BBC) paid for via the licence fees and others (ITV, CH4, etc) I think sell ads. But in the US, each broadcast channel has a specific "territory" that it "owns" and their agreements with the networks state that signals from another affiliate of the same network are not allowed in that station's "territory." If we didn't have all those rules and contracts existing, then sure, you could have a satellite delivered copy of each major and minor network, all advertiser (or tax such as PBS) supported so they could be free to the viewer.

Another large portion of it is foreign language and religious channels, which are already available here on several of the Ku satellites, paid for by the originators (governments, donation-based religious organizations, etc) trying to reach their audience.

Finally, even over there, they have a portion that is encrypted and expects to be paid for, before you can view it.

The problem you end up with, is that the major channels that people actually want to watch will still be behind a paywall of some sort. There have been alternative providers from time to time (ORBY, Kiwisat), but they're still bound by the same rules that the channel owners want to get paid. And I think GloryStar is still a thing of sorts, it refers to the Christian channels available on 97W.

 

[FTA4PA]

Could a free service work in the US. Of course it could, if all the media companies and providers OK'd it first... so..... it's not gonna happen.

 

[N5XZS]

But you never know, that could happen!!

 

[Keith Brannen]

Actually, there are not a lot of religious channels on the satellite when compared to the vast number of mid to lower tier specialty channels that are available for free that here in North America you would have to fork over money to watch. Some of those channels are very good channels. Also, US based channels, such as CNN international and Bloomberg UK are free, unlike here.

A better listing, including Sky's premium pay channels, is here:

Sky UK on Astra 2E/2F/2G at 28.5°E - LyngSat

I think one of the most interesting facts is not only is there Freesat, but also Sky has a lot of channels that are also free. Can you ever see Dish or DirectTV (or Shaw Direct and Bell TV here in Canada) doing that? I know in earlier years NASA and some religious channels were free on Dish, but definitely not the quality and quantity you see with Sky.

 

[KyL416]

A lot of those free to air channels aren't uplinked by Sky directly. BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 uplink most of their own channels, while much of the rest are leasing transponder space from a 3rd party like Arqiva and paying the fee to get a slot in the Sky and/or Freesat EPGs

UK satellite TV is on its last legs though as both of their leases for the Astra 28 fleet end in 2029. Sky has been pushing their customers to Sky Stream/Glass while the broadcaster consortium that runs Freesat and Freeview recently launched Freely where most of the channels come from the internet instead of satellite or OTA.

It also helps that OFCOM in the UK has anti-siphoning laws that require free to air access for "Category A" events like the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euros, Olympics and the finals for Wimbledon, Rugby World Cup and FA Cup while "Category B" events like UEFA, FIFA qualifiers, the Open Championship and major Cricket tournaments involving the home nations can only be on pay TV if they make highlights and delayed broadcasts available to free to air broadcasters. The FCC tried to have similar anti-siphoning rules to guarantee OTA broadcasters first dibs, but that was struck down by Home Box Office vs FCC in 1977.

 

[Keith Brannen]

UK satellite TV is on its last legs though as both of their leases for the Astra 28 fleet end in 2029. Sky has been pushing their customers to Sky Stream/Glass while the broadcaster consortium that runs Freesat and Freeview recently launched Freely where most of the channels come from the internet instead of satellite or OTA.

Sky actually just renewed their lease to 2029 (which is the EOL for the Astra 2G satellite, no idea if there is a replacement planned):

Sky issues update on future of TV satellite dishes for UK households after fears

The TV world is changing fast but one major change is still some way off

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk