What is it with all the smilies?


You're about as funny as the runs.

Same here.

The way I look at dtt, I dont care whether all channels are fta, pay or there is a mixture of both

The main thing for me is what channels/programmes are available

I've got TopUP tv, and I like it.

But I've always found the picture quality on DTT to be better than SKY, maybe that's jsut where I live, so getting E4, UKgold etc. for £8 a month wasn't a big deal. Pity they couldn't get SKYone, but I think SKY are in an awkward position - surely they didn't expect Freeview to be so popular? Did anyone?

Waste Of Time
I think top up tv is a waste of time. There are millions of people who have freeview but theres only a few thousand who have an old itv digital box because it was not that succesful. So already you have limited potienal subscribers - and a lot of old itv digital box owners dont want to get top up tv or moved onto sky and have the box for your bedroom etc.

Top Up Tv IS A RIP OFF
However you may say that there is a new box available but not many people are going to spend around £110 (equipment/ 1st months subscription) for a few channels that only broadcast for a few hours.

How much it will cost for a year...
So if you were to subscribe to top up tv for a year it works out at around £200 however you can get the sky family package which SHOWS ALL THE TOP UP TV CHANNELS FOR 24HRS and around a few hundred more channels for around £240 a year on sky.

You may say that you cant have sky/ cable due to where you live. So dtt is the only choice but would you rather save £8 a month and get more FREE channels which it should be.

I think its a waste of time and instead of spending millions of pounds to get top up tv running they could of saved there money and charged a little less so us freeviewers get more quality channels. They will become bust!
Most People who are willing to pay monthly will get sky and cable because they have more choice. People who want a few extra channels for free get freeview (dtt).

Not if they were shopping channels... Other FTA channels had loads of time to pay the carriage fees before tutv, so I wonder what channels you were expecting to join...

well i think that TUTV is an absolute Rip, i think a £5 a month fee and no connection would be a little better, or maybe a pay as you go scheme would work better, but have recently addopted a free sky box and mini dish off a friend fitted it myself and i know have the best pick of FTA channels with the combination of sky and freeview, BUT apparently in october sky will be sellin a FTA card contain the best of sky and all freeview channels for a one off payment off approximatley £22 rumours have it any how if any one has any info furthe o my reply let me know as all is appriciated and i hoped this helped? Cheers Ricky B

What Sky channels do you get on your fta satelite system, I know of Sky News , are there others

Dont forget your £22 card from Sky allows you to watch ITV1, C4 & five, thats it

That misght be true if you buy a new box

I cant see how Sky can only cost £40 / year more

Skys cheapest package with these channels is £19/month, tutv is £7.99, too me that looks like more than double

i was showing how much it would cost for a new customer to get digital tv.
sky is £40 more because you only pay around £20 a month and you dont need to buy a box or dish.
If you were to get top up tv you will need to buy a box and when you join you will have to pay connection fee then you pay £8 a month.
Plus you may need a new aerial to get all the channels so top up tv could be more expensive than sky to some people.

So i would consider top up tv a rip off

Yes but thats the first year

After 5 years (using the current prices), Skys basic package would have cost £1200, tutv would have cost £584

Sky, What a rip-off

at the moment I cant imagine that top up tv will be still around in 5 years.

Anything could happen......and it usually does

Nah, it's not a rip off. Subscribing isn't compulsory. It isn't even tempting, in my opinion. I don't subscribe and I haven't once felt like I am missing anything.

Will it be here in 5 years time? Don't know and don't care.

Leave the crystal ball gazing to mystic meg. The introduction of new compatible boxes and more prominent advertising in conjunction with Comet and Thomson sounds promising.

Frankly I don't think there'd be many other shopping channels left that would be professional enough and with enough free capital to pay for DTT carriage.

The other remaining shopping channels that we see on Sky are Screenshop style rolling ads, and these make very little money at all, especially when you have a block of about ten of them all next door to eachother on the EPG wasting good space.

What about Auctionworld? Well it's quite clear that sit-up.tv have that niche covered.

As for the friendly "we're a twisted part of your new unwanted, extended family" style channels, QVC and Ideal World more than cover that too.

So when these contracts run out, and Freeview's audience has no doubt grown again, REAL broadcasters who want to offer REAL entertainment will want in.

That's when the sort of channels offered by TopUp TV would want to break away, and be offered as a free-to-air service. After all, Bloomberg and Boomerang would have been free-to-air on Mux D if TopUp TV didn't offer them a thin slice of money pie with bit-part subscription carriage.

in reply to earlier question on sky i have approximately off the top of my head about and extra "visual Channels" 150 such as Extreme sports, reallity tv, live tv, pop, u music, b4, advert chanel, loads of shoping and travel channels without a card, so having this and freeview gives me the best pick of freebies and as to skys free to air card i believe its a one off payment of £22 for a two year vierwers choice, i will contact them for further info and ill let you know, but not avoiding the subject TUTV is a rip and i would never pay for 5 channels, when you get the best out of free TV

I never new tutv had so much influence over tv

They managed to persuade these channels to go pay on all platforms just so they could broadcast them

The only channels I'd have off the current Sky FTA offerings are the horror channel and the wrestling channel. The rest is pretty crap,

Picture quality isn't up to much though for the former.

where are you located and what satellite are you recieving i am picking up approxmately 150-299 channels on sky with out a card and thats from astra 2 maybe you have a poorly angled dish dodgy LNB or something is in the way of the dish, get a sat finder meter from LIDL yes that cheap german shop for £3.99 where thay also sell euro sat and dishes and you could get a full FTA setup for less than £100 enabling you to more that you get with sky to recieve German French etc channels with ocasional Premiership Football broadcasts from france live!??

This could be a whole new thread!

"Who or what would you like NOT to be around in 5 years time?" - restrict you answers (in this case!) to tv/radio, general entertainment, media and newspapers.

I vote for Rupert Murdoch and News International. Failing that, Richard Desmond to be trapped on a desert island with 10 German businessmen.

I've been with tutv almost since day one with a newly purchased ONDigibox. According to all sources I shouldn't even receive Freeview letalone Top Up. I'm also a full Sky subscriber but have Top Up for my bedroom as something to escape to and apart from the odd day can't really fault the channel line up, as I belive it was made clear since BEFORE LAUNCH that it wasn't 10 full time channels. My only "gripe" is that I can't get Boomerang after 12pm, but since I work 'till 6pm theres no real problem. Please as many posters have commented before this is getting really boring now, if you want to watch Top Up TV they pay, if you want to watch Freeview / DTT then fine but stop bitching about some that IS'NT connected in ANYWAY. Top Up TV could close today and the space use would NEVER (currently) go to Freeview as they aren't licenced to use it.

I had a few problemos with tutv, but it WOULD be worth the money if the channels was shown at the same amount of time as it is on telewest and sky (24hrs)

We can argue all day at the end of the day let people make their own minds up it is all personal choice at the end of the day.

By the way Open Water is an awful film but thats my view after watching it last night - but you are free to make your own mind up

When you consider what you get from the BBC for less than a tenner a month - 8 TV channels, 11 national radio channels, BBC World Service, lots of local radio stations and a brilliant website with archived programmes etc - and all with NO ADVERTS - Top-Up is clearly a rip off.