Page 1 of BBC leaves Sky Digital

BBC are leaving SKY Digital and taking all their channels with them in a move to their own satelite and a saving over £85 million over 5 years in encryption costs!!

Whats all that about?

Does that mean we have to point our dishes in a different direction to get BBC?

Surely it would force all Sky owners to buy Freeview?

Or is this just a silly rumour or poor windup? :)

Editor
DVD REVIEWER

Seriously Robert they have quit Sky.

I don`t know how they are going to do it, but I have heard they are settign up their own satelite.
Whether this means you can still get BBC on Sky in the near future is yet to be seen. I doubt anyone would actually go out and buy a seperate machine to watch BB1-4!
Its basically to get out of the fees Sky charge them to encrypt the programmes.
check out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media

The article has Q&A on the split and from what I can gather nothing is going to change from a veiwing point?

It`s all there on the BBC website. They will be paying Sky of £30k and using another existing satellite. I think Sky users will still get the channels.

It seems like good news, I`m all for not getting ripped off and not being made to pay for predominantly crap channels.

The BBC have also announced that they will be using some of the 85million saving to reduce the licence fee.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 12th March 2003, 14:47

Cor, read some of the other stories about that seemingly longtime running debate - some of the previous comments from sky look as if they are shooting themselves in the foot

IE

BBC - Sky, charge us less to broadcast our channels.
Sky - Hahahah, your having a laugh.
BBC - Hey, Goverment, tell Sky to charge us less.
Sky - If you do that goverment, we will stop giving away our settop boxes and slow the uptake of digital TV and making you miss your 2010 switch off target.
BBC - Right, charge us less or else.
Sky - No, what yer gonna do about it!
BBC - Take our channels to another Astra sattelite.
Sky - *DOH*

From what i`ve seen on another site the BBC are just changing from being FTV to FTA. To get round the broadcast problems in europe they are switching to the Astra 2D satellite which is supposed to have a more restricted footprint. The only real differences are that the BBC channels will now be able to be picked up by a FTA satellite receiver as well as the Sky digibox. It will also mean that Sky viewers will now be able to access all the bbc regions including BBC Scotland, Wales and NI.

It`s basically gonna be a satellite version of freeview, no Sky subscription or viewing card needed any more.

On another topic with Sky, do you not think the amount of time taken up with adverts followed by whats coming on next, has now reached an excesive length.

Plus the sound goes through the roof as the decibel level is racked up during ads.

It is now so bad, I have to tape a one hour show and fast foward the adverts, as its too frustrating to watch in real time.

If it goes the same way as the USA where adverts can take up about half of the show time, I will be quiting Sky.

I remember hearing that BBC won the rights to broadcast the Freeview channels after ITV digital went bust, maybe this is their way of trying to get ratings and everyone to buy a seperate set top box as the big switch off for analouge is only 3 years away

"the big switch off for analouge is only 3 years away"

Nah, there`s no way it`ll be switched off that soon.

The original plan (set out about 7 years ago) was to switch off analogue between 2006 and 2010, but I think most people realise now that this was a hopelessly unrealistic target. Besides, the collapse of ITV Digital has probably set things back a few years.

As for the Sky thing, it`s welcome news. Hopefully it`ll mean that a truly free alternative will be established for those who can`t get digital terrestrial, but don`t want to line Murdoch`s pockets. A satellite equivalent to Freeview, in other words.

Mike

This item was edited on Wednesday, 12th March 2003, 20:57