You cannot just lump C4 and ITV as having the same stragegies! C4 have made pro-Freesat comments which people are hoping to mean that they see their future in FTA advertising funded channels. In that case E4HD would be anomalous and MIGHT be removed from Sky at some future date.

A good indication of the actual state-of-play WILL be what happens with More4HD and, hopefully, Film4HD before too long!

That all depends on how long the exclusive VM contract is though, i presume, which, depending on what the actual deal is, might even get extended, who knows.

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/televisions/...deal-49305223/

It has never been clear if this was a formal paid-for "exclusive contract" with VM or mainly a de-facto one (as there was, at the time, no spare satellite space!)

In any event they have had over a year and it is (hopefully!) doubtful if it would have been for any longer than that.

Agreed! C4 is a public service ad funded broadcaster without shareholders, some say Britain's jewell in the crown of broadcasting. Sky have helped get E4HD and originally C4HD both off the ground, however that deal with C4 came to an end and it's likely E4's won't be renewed. If C4 wanted to grab some of Sky's subscription money so much they'd have had Film4 and More4 both in HD as pay channels on Sky, they haven't due to lack of spotbeam capacity and not wanting to get tied in again with Sky. Film4 has been kept off Sky for a reason, VM have it as an exclusive for the time being on, I'm sure, much more reasonable terms than Sky's, it suited VM and suited C4.

In an increasingly HD focused landscape it makes little sense to continue to keep Film 4 HD off Sky's platform whether as a pay or FTA option.

I tend to watch virtually exclusively HD programming (I have a Sky HD sub but come in peace!) and tend not to watch anything on Film4 at the moment in the hope that soon those films will be available in HD and i'll catch them then. Same goes for TCM.

Its all conjecture but at the moment I would say that Channel 4 are leaning towards the FTA option with my own expectation being that both Film 4 HD and More 4 HD will appear on Sky&freesat before the year end. Hopefully once Astra 1N is in place.

According to recent TLE data from https://www.space-track.org today,
I find that 1N is at 1.82E.

That's my opinion as well. If Film4HD had been going to be part of SkyHD it would have been up and running by now!

The link just take us to a login page..

http://www.lyngsat.com/tracker/astra1n.html

it look 5.48e

You need to log in...

Anyway: This open source software can be used to read the TLE data:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/spacecraftaos/

Surely more likely to be simply down to the fact that there was no capacity on Astra 2d, so their hand was forced. It would surely be inconceivable for them to not eventually move to FTA when the new capacity comes available.

They have been pay channels on Sky before even freeview was conceived (under previous channel names though)

If they HAD wanted to be "free" on satellite, when they became free on freeview, then they could have been FTV years ago and receivable with a freesat from sky card.

Clearly they chose to remain as subscription channels despite being free on freeview.

However, now that freesat has made "free" satellite tv more of a popular thing than freesat from sky ever was, there will be an increasing number of viewers questioning why you have to pay for something on satellite, when it's free on freeview.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the larger audience of cheapskates (and I include myself in that description), might just persuade them to re think their business model.

but I wouldn't hold your breath while you wait.

Interesting times ahead, because very soon the "lack of narrow beam capacity" excuse won't be there any more. Then we will finally see the true intentions of various broadcasters, who have previously hidden behind that statement.

Which is exactly where me and others motoring it is finding her

Same with digital terrestrial (in the days before Freeview) and Virgin Media though. They obviously decided that ad revenue trumped subscription revenue on those platforms - they needn't have.


It's a massive difference though. Freeesat from Sky is a tiny proportion compared to subscription customers. Other than for statutory purposes, there's not many reasons for channels to go FTV, on that platform.
Bear in mind also that the UK channels are part owned by BBC Worldwide. To have gone down the FTV road with their portfiolio, would have made Freesat from Sky look a lot more savoury than their own venture - Freesat. The BBC are big evangelists of Freesat, I'd certainly expect to see Dave soon.


Not really any reason to hide. It's not a charity or public service, it's whether or not they decide it's in their own interest, and they've already decided it was on different platforms already.

I Would agree that most of us here like the free part of freesat and that's why we are writing about it and hoping that we get more free channels as soon as possible.

As a person that got into free & paid digital services of DTT Ondigital / ITV Digital ( now known as freeview ) a week before it came online on 7PM Sunday 15th November 1998 and I also got HD box of the first week of FreeSat, and like Freeview it's been held back for lack of space due to bad planing by people at the top.

Freesat was put out that channels ( 200 ) were going to join the service quicker then it did because of space and that the joint owners of the BBC and ITV were held back because they had to by rules give local and regional channels which used up space which were to little of the public software platform.
It has also been held back because of management at ITV which were taking on a new head ( which known as the destroyer of royal mail ) He put out that ITV is going back on free service model to a part paid service. This must have made channel owners look twice into paying for freesat epg space...

As said we now are about to get space for more channels on UK beams, so channels that have had copy right issues can now buy space, as long as sky does not buy it all and contact channels that have the space not be able to go to freesat.

That hope for a good Freesat Xmas with many new channels with good show on them all.........

I seem to remember reading some thread here in the last couple of years maybe. I think that there was a court case between Virgin and Sky perhaps something to do with the fact that some Sky channels were off VM for a while. Anyway i remember someone saying that during this case it emerged that the UKTV owned channels were contracted to Sky until 2014. I might be wrong as it was a while ago. Apart from that I have been thinking that there must be a small chance that sometime Dave Yesterday and Really might go FTA.

You make some very valid points there in relation to the BBC and their strong commitments to Freesat. The FTV route, like you say, could have been playing directly in to Sky for which they didn't want to venture in to so as to protect Freesat itself and could be why until now they've maintained the status quo in terms of leaving all their portfolio pay on DSAT.

SES are well aware of the need and obvious demand for spotbeam capacity at 28.2E. Apart from maybe some redundancy in the fleet, I can't see why they'd bother to put 1N there if space segments (Transponders) are not already contracted out prior to it's arrival. We know ITV are taking a further 3x TP's, C4 is taking one, C5 is to move it's across too. That is five TP's already and if UKTV did also decide to move to 1N there's another two to go. Some are speculating the BBC are to move their remaining 2x remaining 2A TP's over (with BBC News, Parliament and interactive stuff) although this isn't yet confirmed.

We don't know what's going to move where until the changes actually happen, I guess mid-Sept onwards when she's in place at 28.2E we'll start to see some interesting reshuffles.

It looks like n2yo has finally caught up with 1N, now showing at 1.81E with a Perigee to Apogee difference of only 6.3km.
http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37775
http://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=37775

Also updated with new data for 1N:
http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/tle-new.txt

The question now is for how long this latest TLE data is valid?
Previous data was published August 19th.

I don't see any reason why Film 4 HD would need to be on Sky exclusively.

At the end of the day, if C4 put it on Freesat, it would be seen by Sky and FTA customers alike giving C4 up to 2 million additional advertising customers.

Whether or not that balances out the up sides of being Sky exclusive ie a monetary payment, I wouldn't know. It all comes down to advertising revenue as pointed out elsewhere.

However, 30K as the cost of being on Freesat isn't a lot of money compared to the advertising revenue raised (in fact its around the cost of 1 average advert on many channels I believe).

So I agree, no reason to keep it off but Sky but it seems to make sense for viewer numbers not to have it exclusive if maximising advertising revenue is your goal. FTA is the way to go in that case.

when astra 1n final testing on 1.8e and move to 28.2e

Who said anything about it being on Sky exclusively? That would be hard to achieve since it is already on Virgin. I was simply making the point that it made little continuing sense not to be on Sky's platform at all. It is for Channel 4 to decide if it prefers the FTA approach so that it can also be on freesat. I said I believe that is the way Channel 4's thinking is heading.

The only problem with your own argument is that most HD channels would theoretically go FTA on that basis but they don't. It is really down to the choice of the broadcaster. Channel 4 as a PSB is more likely to favour FTA but it isn't a definite - look at ITV 2/3/4 HD.

I think you're a little confused.
I believe that was the issue of Virgin Media (which at the time were part owners of UKTV) doing a deal with Sky enabling them to continue broadcasting the UKTV portfolio of channels on Sky's platform, expecting a similar deal from Sky in return to carry their basic Sky package on cable too. However, Sky didn't offer them this, instead opting to push for a better deal, resulting in the infamous spat.
Anyway, that, as they say, is now history. We digress...

Posted on Astra's FB page yesterday:

SES Astra
Just to prevent further guessing: ASTRA 1N is currently at 1.8E for the Begin of Life Tests. Afterwards, the satellite will head to 28.2E for an interim mission to provide capacity for the UK and Ireland. Afterwards, she will be stationed at 19.2E. No definitive schedule yet. Christopher

Looks like n2yo is much more up to date with 1N's movements now. They've got the apogee to perigee within 8km:

Perigee: 35,790.2 km
Apogee: 35,798.2 km