"... 'Cause I'm as free as a Freeview ..."
(With apologies to Lynyrd Skynyrd)
We've often talked on London Calling about how the British model of media-public, open-access information sharing - anchored primarily around the publicly supported BBC - is so attractive in comparison with the profit-based model prevalent in the US. We often focus on broadcasting and the Internet - especially the latter, where American websurfers are able directly to benefit from the wealth of riches available from across the pond. But it's also worth considering another area of British media where a public, open-access model seems to be beating back the rapacious big media companies, at least for the time being: and that would be in the realm of digital over-the-air television, and especially a completely free terrestrial digital service available across Britain, called Freeview.
Digital television in the UK is streets ahead of the United States. There are now some "15.4m digital households, a rise of 643,000 or 4.4% [over last year] meaning almost 62% of UK households have digital TV." The number is growing by some 50,000 a week, and will continue to grow rapidly. The government plans to begin switching off the analog signal in 2008 - and unlike in the U.S., this is a firm deadline, and will in effect complete the national move to multichannel television.
As the digital multichannel pie gets bigger, a public model of digital broadcasting is making a serious challenge to the for-profit approach. According to MediaGuardian, based on figures supplied by Ofcom, Freeview now atttracts five million homes in the UK - or one-third of the entire digital market in that country. This is up from 25% penetration of the digital market in first quarter 2004. The article notes that Freeview has a head of steam behind it, and "is likely to be boosted further by Channel 4's recent decision to put its entertainment channel, E4 - and E4+1 - on Freeview for the first time, as well as the addition of ITV3.
The article quotes Andy Duncan, CEO of Channel 4, as saying that Freeview was now a "critical platform alongside satellite and cable and has to be taken seriously". You bet your sweet bippy it does!
Some background: According to Wikipedia:
(See also the Freeview web site.)
In fact, the set-top boxes, which comprise the only additional (one-time) expense, have come down in price, and can now be had for £30 - £40 (approx. $60-$80). So all in all, Freeview is an amazing deal - almost unbelievably so. Just for the record, I live in a part of the United States dominated by Time Warner Cable, one of the two giants operators that dominate the U.S. cable market (the other is Comcast). In Time Warner Cable-land it now costs between $55 and $65 per month to receive basic digital cable service (and that's for more than 100 channels that, taken together, have less of interest on them than the five UK terrestrial channels available for free, even without Freeview, across the UK - and Freeview has a lot more than five free channels).
I saw Freeview myself for the first time last summer. My brother and his family live in an area (the Scottish Highlands) where traditional terrestrial TV reception could be pretty dodgy, so the ability to receive crisp, clear digital reception of BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV1, Channel 4, and Channel 5 would probably be worth the price of a set-top digital box on its own. But they can now get at least 30 channels for free, including the following:
Presumably this explains Freeview's expanding base - and also why cable-delivered television (which still requires subscription) has suffered, seeing its share of the digital TV decline, "falling from 18.4% in the first quarter of 2004 to 16.5% for the same period this year." In fact, cable TV has never made major inroads into the UK market - it has always been stymied by the excellent fare available on terretsrial television and by the fact that, unlike the US, satellite broadcasting took off first in the UK (back in 1989).
The necessary infrastructure component comes from significant UK government investment in digital transmission technology (including nationwide transmitters and repeaters, multiplexing and digital compression) to provide an extensive networked service - again, for free - to viewers across the UK. Meanwhile, in addition to the 5 million Freeview homes, "another 445,000 homes have access to free digital television through "Freesat" - former Sky subscribers who have kept their digiboxes." Now I'm sure people have complaints about this service, but you can't complain about the price(!), and the key thing is that it is a service that considers the wants and needs of the TV-viewing community, as opposed to considering the wants and needs of for-profit corporations first and last. Not surprisingly, for-profit entities in the UK are feeling some pressure - even BSkyB, which "remains the market leader with 7.3 million subscribers," or a 48% share. It'll be interesting to see how long Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting, which was one of Freeview's founding members (presumably hoping to entice viewers to its subscription channels), continues to support a service that is pretty attractive on its own.
In America, we benefit immensely from the free access to information and services on the web (anchored by the public behemoth of the BBC). What we don't see is the parallel operation in digital television - access limited to those living in the UK, of course - which is building a robust, working, public service alternative to the for-profit, pay-per-view system that is often seen as the only option left for national television in the United States. This provides a very appealing model for those U.S.-based dreamers among us who wish for a public service media system that can adapt to the new technological environment and avoid the gated community media model (based on the ability to pay) that increasingly predominates in the U.S.
We've often talked on London Calling about how the British model of media-public, open-access information sharing - anchored primarily around the publicly supported BBC - is so attractive in comparison with the profit-based model prevalent in the US. We often focus on broadcasting and the Internet - especially the latter, where American websurfers are able directly to benefit from the wealth of riches available from across the pond. But it's also worth considering another area of British media where a public, open-access model seems to be beating back the rapacious big media companies, at least for the time being: and that would be in the realm of digital over-the-air television, and especially a completely free terrestrial digital service available across Britain, called Freeview.
Digital television in the UK is streets ahead of the United States. There are now some "15.4m digital households, a rise of 643,000 or 4.4% [over last year] meaning almost 62% of UK households have digital TV." The number is growing by some 50,000 a week, and will continue to grow rapidly. The government plans to begin switching off the analog signal in 2008 - and unlike in the U.S., this is a firm deadline, and will in effect complete the national move to multichannel television.
As the digital multichannel pie gets bigger, a public model of digital broadcasting is making a serious challenge to the for-profit approach. According to MediaGuardian, based on figures supplied by Ofcom, Freeview now atttracts five million homes in the UK - or one-third of the entire digital market in that country. This is up from 25% penetration of the digital market in first quarter 2004. The article notes that Freeview has a head of steam behind it, and "is likely to be boosted further by Channel 4's recent decision to put its entertainment channel, E4 - and E4+1 - on Freeview for the first time, as well as the addition of ITV3.
The article quotes Andy Duncan, CEO of Channel 4, as saying that Freeview was now a "critical platform alongside satellite and cable and has to be taken seriously". You bet your sweet bippy it does!
Some background: According to Wikipedia:
- Freeview is a free-to-air digital television service in the United Kingdom broadcast from [government-funded] terrestrial transmitters using the DVB-T standard. Launched on October 30 2002 at 6am, it took over the DTT licence on 4 multiplexes to broadcast from the defunct ITV Digital.
Unlike [the now-defunct] ITV Digital and the cable and satellite digital TV services, it offers no subscription, premium or pay-per-view channels. All that is needed to receive the Freeview service is a set-top box costing around £30 to £100, or a new television with an integrated digital tuner. An annual television licence fee is levied for the service, the same fee that covers the analogue channels.
(See also the Freeview web site.)
In fact, the set-top boxes, which comprise the only additional (one-time) expense, have come down in price, and can now be had for £30 - £40 (approx. $60-$80). So all in all, Freeview is an amazing deal - almost unbelievably so. Just for the record, I live in a part of the United States dominated by Time Warner Cable, one of the two giants operators that dominate the U.S. cable market (the other is Comcast). In Time Warner Cable-land it now costs between $55 and $65 per month to receive basic digital cable service (and that's for more than 100 channels that, taken together, have less of interest on them than the five UK terrestrial channels available for free, even without Freeview, across the UK - and Freeview has a lot more than five free channels).
I saw Freeview myself for the first time last summer. My brother and his family live in an area (the Scottish Highlands) where traditional terrestrial TV reception could be pretty dodgy, so the ability to receive crisp, clear digital reception of BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV1, Channel 4, and Channel 5 would probably be worth the price of a set-top digital box on its own. But they can now get at least 30 channels for free, including the following:
- ITV2
BBC Three
BBC Four
BBC News 24
ITV News Channel
Sky News
Sky Sports News
BBC Parliament
Sky Travel
UKTV History
The Hits
UKTV Bright Ideas
CBBC Channel and CBeebies (both children's BBC channels)
ITV3
Presumably this explains Freeview's expanding base - and also why cable-delivered television (which still requires subscription) has suffered, seeing its share of the digital TV decline, "falling from 18.4% in the first quarter of 2004 to 16.5% for the same period this year." In fact, cable TV has never made major inroads into the UK market - it has always been stymied by the excellent fare available on terretsrial television and by the fact that, unlike the US, satellite broadcasting took off first in the UK (back in 1989).
The necessary infrastructure component comes from significant UK government investment in digital transmission technology (including nationwide transmitters and repeaters, multiplexing and digital compression) to provide an extensive networked service - again, for free - to viewers across the UK. Meanwhile, in addition to the 5 million Freeview homes, "another 445,000 homes have access to free digital television through "Freesat" - former Sky subscribers who have kept their digiboxes." Now I'm sure people have complaints about this service, but you can't complain about the price(!), and the key thing is that it is a service that considers the wants and needs of the TV-viewing community, as opposed to considering the wants and needs of for-profit corporations first and last. Not surprisingly, for-profit entities in the UK are feeling some pressure - even BSkyB, which "remains the market leader with 7.3 million subscribers," or a 48% share. It'll be interesting to see how long Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting, which was one of Freeview's founding members (presumably hoping to entice viewers to its subscription channels), continues to support a service that is pretty attractive on its own.
In America, we benefit immensely from the free access to information and services on the web (anchored by the public behemoth of the BBC). What we don't see is the parallel operation in digital television - access limited to those living in the UK, of course - which is building a robust, working, public service alternative to the for-profit, pay-per-view system that is often seen as the only option left for national television in the United States. This provides a very appealing model for those U.S.-based dreamers among us who wish for a public service media system that can adapt to the new technological environment and avoid the gated community media model (based on the ability to pay) that increasingly predominates in the U.S.
posted by hdougie at 10:19 AM
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