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ITV and BBC take on Sky with Freesat launch


ITV and the BBC are to launch a free digital satellite service in a long-anticipated move to take on market-leading pay-TV company BSkyB.

The broadcasters said today they were working together to develop a Freesat service that would "complement" Freeview, the digital terrestrial service that has been sold to more than 5 million homes.

Freesat will be aimed at the 25% of UK households that cannot receive Freeview and is aiming to be operational in the first half of next year.

The new service will compete with Sky's own Freesat service, which launched in October offering 120 TV channels and 80 radio stations for a one-off installation charge of £150.

Sky is also the market leader in pay television, with 7.8 million subscribers to its Sky Digital satellite service that gives access to premium channels.

ITV - which announced a rise in revenues and profits as it unveiled first-half results today - also said it would start broadcasting all its channels "in the clear", following the BBC's lead in dispensing with Sky's encryption services.

The new Freesat service will showcase all of ITV's digital channels along with those of the BBC and other broadcasters.

Charles Allen, the ITV chief executive, said the company wanted its channels to be as widely available as possible.

"As we move from an analogue to a digital environment, Freesat - and Freeview - will enable every family in the UK to enjoy a wide range of quality channels for free," he said.

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, said: "We welcome ITV's intention to take all its channels into the clear on satellite, and also welcome them as partners in the project to develop a consumer-friendly, subscription-free satellite proposition.

"This is great news for viewers. It paves the way to provide subscription-free digital television across the whole country.

"Our long-stated aim has been to bring about an open market in subscription-free satellite services so we can ensure free access to all the BBC's services across the country in the run-up to switchover and beyond."

However, a Channel 4 spokesman indicated that the broadcaster would not be joining ITV and the BBC in a Freesat alliance in the immediate future.

"We broadly welcome any development that offers more UK homes the chance to receive the full range of digital services and creates more competition between platforms. We will watch how Freesat develops with interest," the spokesman said.

"However, we have carriage agreements for all our channels with Sky Digital and we have a number of years to run on these deals. We're happy with our current distribution deals with Sky and have no present plans to review these arrangements."

ITV also announced today a new mobile service allowing users to access footage of favourite shows as well as a broadband trial in Sussex. mediaguardian

Hmm, it will probably be like Freeview and I can't get Freeview here so have to rely on a pay for Sky Subscription.

so, let me get this clear...the BBC - a publically funded forced tax, is 'competing' with a private broadcaster?

You'd think from how it sound that BBC is in it just for the viewing numbers, rather than focusing on producing quality programmes.

And we will still have to pay our TV license.

Suzanne, you know without Sky can you not get Channel 5 either? We can't - to be honest it doesn't look like we're missing much from Sky but it's just a bit weird how you can get it some places and not others.

My Grandfather doesn't have Sky or anything and whenever watching the TV tends to watch Channel 5. Oh, or Emmerdale

One of the problems with Sky is in what they call "Free".
I had a discussion years ago on a newsgroup about this and most of the Sky subscribers couldn't see what I was getting at.
With Sky there have always been twp types of 'Free' channels. There are the Free-To-Air channels where any receiver can be used and then there are the ones that Sky call Free where you need one of their receivers and a Free viewing card. The point I couldn't get across to many was that if you needed a card to view them even if you didn't pay a subscription it was a free-to-air channel.
A scan of the Astra2 will find around 130 channels or parts of channels (Red button serives etc) that any digital receiver work with.

I do like the idea of a better choise for viewers. Freeview is rapidly catching up with Sky. The new service should help keep viewers away from Sky. It would be interesting to see the subscription figures for Sky over the last year to see if the churn rate is increasing.

I wouldn't have another subscription with Sky .I did in the analogue days so my parents had a better choice but they stopped watching and Sky wouldn't just give me a sports package (for the cricket) so I got out. Besides these days I can choose from over 3000 channels from a large number of satellites for free so I don't see the need.

We are in a good location and have all 80+ channels on Freeview dispite the postcode lottery saying we shouldn't so we are spoilt for choise.

I'd just like to see Sky back tracking having to reduce prices etc to keep subscribers.