OmegaSource

Don’t hold your breath here. Yankees and Canadians can’t even dream about it. If they want a  free TV they have to steel it or watch some distorted signal of a local station on their old analog TV sets. In this site of the world you have to pay even for the commercials.

A free satellite TV and radio service from the BBC and ITV, named Freesat, was started in England Tuesday.

The new service will allow viewers to watch high-definition programming without paying for a subscription, The Times of London reported.

Instead, customers will pay a one-time fee of about $300 for a digital box, satellite dish and installation.

Viewers also must have an HD-ready television to view high-definition programs.

The report said the service will be available in 98 percent of British homes and initially will feature more than 80 television and radio channels.

It is expected to offer up to 200 channels by the end of the year, The Times said.

Way to go England !

Source: UPI

Satellite and Cable companies say the government has no place telling them which TV channels to carry, even after Shaw Communications Inc. sparked an industry-wide dispute this week by dropping a number of local stations across the country from its StarChoice satellite service.(Satellite companies were saying that for a long time, but at that time Satellite companies ment small and independent, under preasure of rules, regulations, lawsuits from Shaw, Rogers and Bell and now Satellite Companies ARE Shaw and Bell)  

In documents filed yesterday, Rogers Communications Inc., Canada’s largest cable company, told the federal broadcast regulator that implementing new rules to give TV channels more power to demand carriage would be “unnecessary and inappropriate.”(as long as I remember cable companies didn’t like to pay for channels they regroadcast)

Rogers, Shaw and several other distributors want to choose how they shuffle channel lineups to make room for high-definition feeds. But many broadcasters, particularly specialty channels, worry they’ll be pushed off the dial.

The dispute flared up this week when Shaw announced its StarChoice satellite service was dropping CTV Calgary, Global in the Maritimes, CBC Regina, CITY-TV Winnipeg and Toronto’s Sun TV, to make room for high-definition channels that take up more bandwidth. The moves were made Wednesday, and only CTV Calgary was returned to the service after StarChoice was deluged with complaints from angry customers, said Ken Stein, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs at Shaw.(I hope they read the industry news and know that Virgin media  lost nearly 47,000 subscibers last year when they dropped some channels- see our previouse post “Vigin Madia and Sky are negotiating.”)

CBC said the move “demonstrates the need … to require [satellite] providers to carry provincially relevant signals from the main networks.”

Regulations require StarChoice to carry one CBC feed in every time zone and offer an equitable number of CTV, Global and CITY-TV stations . The regulator said it is looking into the matter, but it appears Shaw acted within the rules.

Rogers’ comments came in a written submission to the CRTC  which is revamping the rules in the television sector.

CTV and Global, in a joint submission, said loosening the rules for cable and satellite companies would “enhance the power” of the distributors.