I received an e-mail from TUTV today containing the following info "From December 6th G.O.L.D. will be on air from 11am to 2pm Monday to Thursday and between 12pm and 2pm on Friday, while Home will now be on between 11am and 12pm every Friday" in other words they've lost yet another stream and are squezing a few parts of programmes into a bit of the SPN stream. I only have the ESPN service for the odd football match and G.O. L.D. so I will again be cancelling as I did when they went over to Antime. Fortunately I am moving soon and wll make sure I have access to Virgin or Sky at my next address. The long lingering death of TUTV goes on and when BT stop paying for the Sky Sports channels, next year it may be a merciful end.

Thanks for posting your e-mail.

This confirms that the current GOLD/Home stream is being returned to Channel 5 for its new Channel 5+1 service launching then, and that Top Up TV are going to put GOLD/Home on the ESPN stream, transmitting GOLD upto 2pm and ESPN from 2pm.

Well that's just great, so one of the last things worth watching on topup will be cut down to almost nothing.

Anyone know if GOLD is heading for freeview or is that too much to hope for

At this rate TUTV will shoot itself finally in the foot once and for all at this rate.

Any chance of posting the contents of the email?

That means that assuming Picturebox closes then TV Favourites could be on from 4am M-Sa (6am Su) to 10.30am. TVX would be lost from the other stream being handed back and RadioTimes Extra has already been transferred from TVX to 5 USA.

Of course, the above e-mail indicates that ESPN will not be utlising the matched capacity between pre-DSO mux B and post-DSO Arqiva A or B or going 24/7 anytime soon.

And not GOLD either which was another popular choice. Home is obviously LCN squatting (if it wasn't obvious before) and GOLD probably is too.

ESPN might be in contract until July which was the month when it first took over from Setanta.

But there are rumours of a second ESPN channel and Yesterday +1 and Big Deal 2 have licences.

Why would one person receive an email ?
I have been with TopUp from day one and NEVER receive emails from them---- apart from when I contact them.
Quote : "From December 6th G.O.L.D. will be on air from 11am to 2pm Monday to Thursday and between 12pm and 2pm on Friday"

That's nice --- I'll have to alter my working hours .........
Regards

Why can't they just put it out of it's misery? This is the longest, slowest death of a TV channel from a particular platform I've ever seen.

Pure and simple LCN hogging.
Either 1. Because of contractual reasons between UKTV and TUTV.
or 2. If it's for a potential new UKTV channel on DTT next year. But UKTV already have 17, 19,20 and 25. Unless they're secretly planning to bring lots of their channels to Freeview?

Is Home moving to channel 17 for its once a week outing or will it retain channel number 26?

i left topuptv 2 months ago, and gone over to fetchtv, you only pay for what you want to watch. plus the medie player worth having which is a added bonus.

One hour PER WEEK for a channel?

Is that really worth bothering with? Is this just some pathetic attempt to keep "Home" in the alleged line up, or due to some contractual obligation to include Home as a channel?

Surely, this is the end for favourites.

Apparently Picturebox is staying put, so assuming ESPN does too, that leaves 25 hours a week for TV Favourites, mainly between 4am & 7.45am. That's a long way from 650 programmes a month even if they are all 1/2 hour long. Did TUTV mention any reductions in subscriptions?

TVX will have to close unless it blags another slot elsewhere.

got my email from TUTV this morning, what a fat lot of use this is, who the hell is going to watch GOLD at these times, frankly I have better things to do at this time.
When TUTV first started it was well worth the monthy fee with several live steams, Its now a waste of time , precious MUX space and money
Time to close my account I think and save myself some money

I emailed TUTV yesterday after and UKTV to see if there is anyway of confirming the rumours about GOLD going FTA next year. Haven't heard anything as of yet. But I do agree that TUTV is becoming a joke but with my situation we're be staying to the bitter end as we can't go for BT, Sky or Virgin due to various issues at home.

Maybe someone will buy out TUTV and set up a couple of pay channels that run 12hours a day and give some programs worth watching either that or the main channels sort themselves out and start putting something better on the FTA area with no more shopping channels or gameshows

I wonder also considering the number of emails I've sent to TUTV why they appear to be only contacting certian people. Could this have anything to do with those who helped test the new software update?

It wasn't just one person. I had it too, perhaps because I'm subscribe to Sky Sports 1 and opted to pay the additional two quid a month to get GOLD as well.

The new GOLD hours are so restricted that I wondered if the email could contain a typo.

Cancelled today after speaking to Top Up on the phone. They confirned that the Gold hours will be 11:00 to 14:00 Monday to Thursday.

Well guess what ?
I received the email today ---- maybe TopUp are reading here!!
If you are, then it will definately be "bye bye" to you for altering the hours of G.O.L.D.
I work and if you think I will be setting my box to record every day you have another think coming.
Regards --- been nice knowing you.

To be fair to them, TUTV have been using two leased channel spaces owned by Channel 5 and it was Channel 5's decision to claim back one of their remaining spaces to launch C5+1 on Freeview.

I suspect this move will provoke a wave of cancellations since people will no longer be able to watch G.O.L.D. live when they come in from work, etc. I noticeTV Time Mike can't find other alternatives, would a Freesat set-up be an option instead? The channel line up is here: http://www.freesat.co.uk/what-you-get/our-channels

TelevisionUser.
I've supported them almost from day one.
Will not be paying for a channel I can't watch due to being in work...... !!
Ch5+1 . ? I can't wait.
Regards

just read the e-mail came on her to check if these were actually additional hours. - obviously not so will be on phone as soon as I can to cancel the two quid I pay for this!

Surely, TV Favourites is now dead.

Signing up on line seems to have been disabled - clicking on sign up now just goes to a blank box. All sports options fully working.

Is the one hour per week for Home something to do with keeping the channel number slot? Seems utterly pointless otherwise.

I had a letter today in the post. Clever bit of marketing to try and make out you are getting an 'improved' service, rather than a cut-down one.

Anyhow, my mind has been made up for me about cancelling, as I just went to play out a recorded copy of Mongrels, the box completely froze with the HDD rattling away, had to power off to reboot, and now it claims theree is no working Hard Disk. Even after doing a re-format, still won't recognise the HDD.

So, thanks TuTV, your crappy hardware has finally let me down, lost last nights download of V and Warehouse 13, not to mention the stuff I chose to record - so am phoning up tomorrow to cancel, will buy some DVD's and a Humax HDR

From the reaction here, it appears to be the final straw from Top Up TV, unless they can pull a rabbit out of the hat in the form of better content, which at the moment is unlikely.