BBC Trust green-lights Freesat service
Today the BBC Trust annouced that they are officially backing a new free-to-view satellite service in a joint venture with ITV. The decision to approve this proposal was reached after several months of public consultation, of which I voiced my support directly to the BBC in April. Freesat will rival BSkyB’s own “Freesat” service and I can foresee that Sky will withdraw their service in the coming months.
The decision was approved due to overwelming public support and market analysis that indicated that there would not be a detrimental effect to existing cable and satellite operators in the UK. The provisions of the agreement require the BBC Trust to maintain suffient control over the joint venture; other networks using the service are not subsidised by the TV Licence; and the operations of BBC/ITV Freesat are kept seperate from the existing Freeview digital terrestrial service.
The BBC Trust have listened to consumer demand and are considering High Definition (HD) television from the start, which should mean that BBC HD and other HD programming is available from launch, or shortly thereafter. It should be noted that the report does state that a full public value investigation would be required before the BBC could launch further and more complete HD programming, which would need approval from both the BBC Trust and Ofcom. Freesat will ease Ofcom’s difficult decision regarding whether to aution off the existing analogue terrestrial television spectrum when the signal is switched off completely in 2012. Ofcom have come under increasing pressure recently to keep the UHF spectrum free for terrestrial High Definition television services. Now potentially all UK citizens will be able to receive HDTV from the BBC and others without having to pay a subscription to Rupert Murdock’s BSkyB.
The concerns raised by myself and countless others over the future of free HDTV was one of the major factors that has been decisive in this decision. Over 95% of all the responses from the public to the BBC expressed concerns about relying on BSkyB for digital television, especially from 2008 onwards. This was another major factor in the BBC’s decision, even though BSkyB complained that their service already met the DVB requirements for non-encrypted digital satellite television.
Currently there is no real indication of when Freesat will launch, but the service will charge a one-off fee of around £150 for a set-top box (including a harddisk PVR).
You can read the full report at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/closed_consultations/freesat.html.
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