Battle for final Freeview HD slot kicks off

[Media Boy UK]

Five is going head to head with a channel combining Film4 and S4C for an HD channel slot on Freeview.

Five and C4/S4C have submitted bids to Ofcom for the fourth HD channel on Multiplex B, which the regulator will weigh up before announcing its decision next month.

Three HD Freeview channels have already been given the go ahead: one from the BBC, one from Channel 3 licensees ITV, STV and UTV, and one from C4 and S4C.

Ofcom invited proposals for the remaining fourth slot from PSB broadcasters in December last year. The chosen channel will launch on Freeview at the end of 2010.

If C4 and S4C win a second HD licence, Five would be the only UK public service broadcaster without an HD offering on Freeview by the end of next year. However, Ofcom is looking into establishing a fifth HD slot by 2012 which would again be open to tender.

C4's proposal
C4's proposed channel would start at 7am with
The UK-wide broadcast of four hours of S4C children's shows, before switching to Film4 from 11am – 4am/

From 4am to 7am, C4 would deliver a range of the most popular HD programmes from its own channels and third party acquisitions to PVRs.

The slots for children's programming are designed to prepare C4 for its expected new responsibilities as part of the government's proposed reshaping of C4 as a PSB rival to the BBC. As a means of securing UK-wide distribution for S4C children's content on DTT, it would also ensure an outlet for Welsh-language programming.

Five's proposal
Five's HD channel would mirror the parent's schedule from 5pm to 1am, which accounts for around 70% of all viewing of the existing channel. Initially, 43% of programmes would be in HD and Five would gradually increase this to establish a fully HD schedule by 2018.

From 1am to 6am, other services such as push video-on-demand from Five and other broadcasters would be offered, while another broadcaster's HD service could be supplied from 6am to 5pm.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/2...kicks_off.html

Info from Broadcast now.

[demented]

From channel 4's submission.

In 2008 Channel 4 signed a contract with Red Bee to provide playout services
for all its existing channels, including 4HD. When these facilities come on
stream in Q4 2009 they will give Channel 4 access to a brand new and fully
HD compliant infrastructure for media management, transmission and editing
facilities. This will allow it to create an HD version of Film4 at relatively low
incremental cost.

What do people think? More HD channels for freesat from channel 4 in 2010/11 even if they don't get the slot on freeview?

Originally Posted by demented

What do people think? More HD channels for freesat from channel 4 in 2010/11 even if they don't get the slot on freeview?

Agreed. As the dog's breakfast that is HD via Freeview becomes ever more apparent, the broadcasters are going to look increasingly at Freesat, which has already positioned itself as the home of free-to-air HD (some feat, considering it only has BBC and a red-button ITV service at the moment, amounting to not-very-many hours of actual HD broadcasting).

Some questions I wish Ofcom would answer (but don't imagine they will):

Where does Ofcom think it's going to find space for a fifth HD channel on Freeview? Does this mean it's beginning to look again at its commitment to selling off the analogue spectrum to the highest commercial bidder?
Given that anyone wanting Freeview+HD will have to buy a new STB, why isn't Ofcom simply dropping its messy Freeview compromise completely and telling everyone to get Freesat+HD?
What are they going to tell Freeview users to do a few years from now when the entire output of the BBC is HD and it inevitably wants to drop the dedicated BBC-HD channel in favour of HD versions of its regular channels?
On a scale of 1-10, how p**sed off does Ofcom estimate British TV viewers will be when they realise that their brand new, Freeview integrated, HD-ready TV set will be unable to receive Freeview+HD channels without a STB?

The whole thing is an unmitigated, short-sighted mess.

[Matth]

This is the DAB debacle all over again!

DAB (Eureka-147) chose standards that were within the technoilogical limits of the time it was designed, then pressed on with them even though it was clear that they were ludicrously outdated by the time it was even in limited test.

By the time a serious commitment to analog shutdown was made, it should have been clear that HD was the way forward.