This return, the addition of Viacom channels to YouTube TV and the rationalisation of their portfolio looks to me like Viacom have finally realised that they need to try and prop up their viewing figures by being a part of the smaller streaming services that are offered. It wouldn't surprise me if they have also accepted lower carriage fees to reflect this too.
Posts by RichardCoulter
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It's actually pointless, really. Does Sky really think that people select what they want to watch according to the channel name? People choose content, not the channel name, surely?
I always assumed that Sky did it to try and give the impression that they are continually adding new film channels.
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Sounds like it was a weekend off for the VM techs then, they picked a good weekend to do it.
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The main ones were MTV OMG, MTV Dance & MTV Rocks, the rest were +1's eg Paramount +1.
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Media Boy says that DBR is reporting that Virgin are testing a new stream called CO88 and that it is carrying seven unknown channels.
https://www.digitalbitrate.com…&liste=1&live=209&lang=en
Could these be the new Sky UHD channels?
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You never know, such subterfuge might well be what's going on.
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Well they probably are getting decent numbers on ITV Hub and so maybe they are fine with demoting +1s on a platform that is, relatively speaking, expensive. Make money on an asset.
I had a great theory, probably nonsense, this morning for all this Merit/CCXTV type of thing happening, but life intervened. I can post it if you fancy a laugh, it may be just creative nonsense on my part.
Please do
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Of course whoever buys Merit would get the LCN, that would be the whole point of the exercise in creating the channel, to get around the Freeview rules that mean you can't sell the LCN on its own.
Assuming ITV hasn't suddenly got in the mood to make a gardening/cooking channel and everyone's reading this all wrong.
So is it because it looks like ITV are 'selling' a decent EPG number for one of their channels and moving said channel to a worse position?
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Like many have suggested elsewhere, making it sellable.
You can't sell channel numbers on Freeview, you can sell channels, but I think it has to have a schedule and broadcast something first. They won't want to be selling the slot on SDN, just the number, so they've moved Merit off their multiplex. The idea being the buyer, if they want better coverage than a temporary multiplex provides, obtains the space on COM5 or 6 separately.
It has been suggested that CCXTV is the same strategy, for a different owner. But with them they seem to be packaging it with a full slot.
All just speculation for now, no-one is saying anything.
Together gets its space gifted (and possibly some programming as I understand it), so they clearly "let" ITV have a slice of the Together+1 stream. Likely a temporary arrangement.
But won't the new LCN allocated to Merit have been awarded to whoever ends up buying it anyway (if they had applied for it at the same time)? Or is ITV going to potentially sell off one of their own lower numbers and move one of their channels to a higher slot?
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what do we think ITV are playing at?
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According to this:
https://digitalbitrate.com/dtv…16&live=209&sec=0&lang=en
VM is back to showing Pick in SD again. I assume the HD version on satellite will close shortly.
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i like some of the stuff on Vice, so it will be good to still be able to receive it on All4.
How come it's on All4? They're not connected to Vice are they?
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Sony really do seem to be cutting back these days.
As for Vice, an article using words such as "Ineteresdtingly" and header words such as "linenar" has to be completely accurate. BTN's spellchecker is clearly drunk.
People don't seem to care these days. Been told that the iPlayer currently says 'Thank you for wathing'. Recent emails I've received from E.on and Now TV look like they've been written by a young child. I complained and received an apology- complete with spelling mistakes.
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According to the EPG, Sony Channel +1 will close on Virgin Media on 31/7/20 at 6am.
No idea if it will also be closing on Sky. Is this channel on Freeview?
Why Vice was removed from VM:
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Overnight SID 322 Sky Premiere 1hr had the hide-reversal flag removed, so is now hidden from the EPG, it moved from EPG slot 412 to placeholder EPG slot 33. Meanwhile, SID 2405 Sky Animation HD (SkyAnimatn) was added to the NIT of customer facing and other remaining networks / regions and was moved from EPG slot 413 to 412.
There were no other changes at the time of the scan.
I believe that on Sky this is not classed as a premium channel ie non movie subscribers can get it. Just tried 412 on my Full House package and It's encrypted
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At first I thought that was a strange choice, it's not exactly the best known or most popular dance track ever. But it is quite uplifting and has fireworks... and you can't close a channel down without fireworks...
I can't help feeling that there is still a place for these channels. It's just unfortunate that it's a place without enough viewers... oh well!
I love a lot of dance music, up until a few years ago I co owned a dance club. One night/morning after it had closed, we were having a few drinks with the staff. The fire door was open to let some air in from the fire escape and the fire escape was the outside entrance to the staff accommodation on the floor above.
By this time I was pretty drunk and saw a VM engineer go up the fire escape. I wasn't expecting that and checked and found that the manager had called them out. In my drunken state I asked him if he knew what was going to be on channel xyz that the forums were talking about. He just said "I don't know, but that's where the adult channels are"! I never lived it down afterwards
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Club MTV continued after 4am into the teleshopping slot. Perhaps VM forgot about it and switched to the slate when they noticed a blank feed.
On Sky, all the feeds were cut at 10:25am yesterday (except Comedy Central Extra+1 which was still broadcasting off the EPG as at 10:29).All the labels for these channels (five on 11.626V and Comedy Central Xtra+1 on 21.141H) had been removed by 11:44. The remaining MTV channels look a lot clearer for now on satellite, not checked if they are any better on VM as I believe that VM obtain their MTV SD feeds from the Astra satellites.
For posterity, unlike VH1 last January, the MTV music channels got a proper send off:
Final videos....
- MTV OMG with Abba - Thank You For The Music
- Club MTV with Martin Garrix ft. Bonn - High On Life
- MTV Rocks with Oasis - Don’t Look Back In Anger
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AFAIK only Club MTV carried on until the end, everything else had the info slates up fairly early. SDT linkage hasn't been used, so the video slates will be on the original video streams.
Apparently, MTV OMG! and MTV Rocks were removed at approximately 00:20, however, Club MTV continued until 4:00.
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No changes for the weekend.
On Monday, quite a few channel closures:
TSID 4:
SID 403 Club MTV
SID 409 MTV OMG
SID 410 MTV Rocks
TSID 5:
Horse & Country
TSID 6:
SID 608 Vice
All of which have had the End Of Service and Placeholder flags added and are showing closure information slates.
On TSID 17 SID 1702 Sky Blockbuster HD (BlkbstrsHD) has been rebranded as Sky Harry Potter HD (HarryPotHD).
The active hours of TSID 13 SID 1302 Virgin TV Highlights have changed to reflect the latest position after showcasing "Get Moving". Not yet at 24 hours, so further changes to follow.
Horse & Country closed early, by at least an hour and ten minutes. VM seem to have a habit of closing channels down before the advertised time.
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Personally, I liked the site before in its previous incarnations and now it seems better than ever. What other site out there gives you clear news sections on cable, sat, broadcasting etc etc? It's something I was originally planning to do with this site, as I can easily create editorial style pages, but real world events took over.
I wonder if they need a forum....
I wonder if satellites.co.uk would be interested in joining forces too?
A lot of posters on DS seem to think that RXTV glean their news & info. from DS threads. I have noticed that some of the things that I (and others) have posted have soon become an item on there. Even if this is true, i'm not bothered as i've sometimes taken inspiration from news first seen on their site!
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AMC's Acorn TV launches in the UK next week on Wednesday 29 April. A range of original programmes will be available, including Queens of Mystery, Dead Still and The Sounds.
https://advanced-television.co…unches-in-uk-on-april-29/
Acorn TV will be found on all the usual places including Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. There is no word yet on whether it will arrive on the Sky, Virgin Media or BT platforms, except to confirm that the streamer is 'in discussions with other distribution partners'.
The cost is £4.99 per month (or £49.99 per annum) and there is a 30-day free trial for early adopters.
Your prediction that streaming services would take over from traditional TV sooner rather than later appears to be coming true. Arqiva are to make 1/3 of their workforce redundant.
82% of broadcasters expect that 5G will become the norm for people to receive television, with 37% expecting this to happen within the next TWO years!!!
I wonder if the decision by our Government to block Huawei from being involved in 5G services on security grounds will affect this accelerated changeover though?
https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk…streaming/5151522.article
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Six more Viacom channels will be closing on 20/7/20.
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Dan Wooten, formally of the News Of The World and now executive editor of the Sun
Famous for his camp appearances on Lorraine claiming to be connected and in the know about various celebs
A real serious journalist to comment on the BBC
Can't abide him.
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Apparently, MTV OMG, Club MTV & MTV Rocks will close at 6am on 20/7/20.
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You might want to check the actual readership stats before making statements such as this. The most popular (paid for) newspaper is The Sun, I don't know what that says about newspaper readers in general.
Hopefully it won't be for much longer:
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Just learned that Sky have a test EPG, though it's not accessible via a Sky box as It's tied to the viewing card in the same way that regional services are.
It isn't encrypted, so can be accessed via a customisable box.
Do we know if VM has an equivalent?
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If the EPG is correct, it looks like Sky Cinema Premiere +1 is closing on 22/7/20.
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I think that they've tried to do that by most Local TV channels now being consolidated into ownership by only two companies and by using simulcasts from Talking Pictures & CBS Reality.
The best thing to do would be to let the whole network out to one channel as a quasi national channel service, particularly as Freeview now has reduced capacity and is set to lose even more.
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It's coming up for two years since the UKTV thing. You can't expect them all to stay forever.
I like Vice UK for the animé on late at night, but I'm not surprised that it may be going.
Well, VM said that they were here to stay. AFAIK, Vice is to remain on Sky and it was clearly only a two year carriage contract (in my experience these are usually longer than two years, three at a minimum), so I think that jj was correct in his prediction.
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Local TV was nothing more than Jeremy Hunts Vanity Project; brought in at the time of Cameron's austerity measures.
