What are you going to do?

Our man in Havana

In the wake of FTV cards being cancelled soon. What steps are you going to take to continue viewing ITV etc?

I intend to get a uk sub.

watty

I'd be fairly sure (and I'm generally pessimistic / sceptic) that ITV will be FTA "soon". "Soon" might be August 2004 or sooner. They were very nearly (a) Not on DSAT at all. (b) FTA.

Unless UK gov / ITC makes noises C4 and Five might not even be FTV by end of year.

Either even new FTV cards will be useless (one way or another) or UK Gov/ITC will step in.

"Five" particularly has terrible Analog coverage (Just checked. Lots of main BBC/ITV/C4 TX sites don't even carry it). DTT coverage aint hot. So pressure will be on to make it stay FTV unless it gets "sold off" under new licence conditions as basically an extra Sky Pay TV channel. Which is more than probable!

C4 has a "Public Service" element to its licence/charter and may even get some Public money / Licence. Can't remember details.


Basically Sky will be putting as much pressure as possible to get those 500,000 to 1M non-subscription UK boxes back.

Since "political cost" mostly is not translated to money and "money from subs" is, it is Sky's interest to use BBC pulling out of FTV scheme to cancel as many non-sub cards (FTV or cancelled subs) as possible. In a sense they hope to turn "defeat of BBC leaving CA" into "victory of forcing FTV users to subscribe".

ITC/ UK gov has not hitherto shown themselves much willing to stand up to Sky. Which is part of why BBC so keen to be FTA and shot of the NDS cards.

I ...er... have an old FTV card. I'm looking at maps and potential of big aerials for Presly and Brougher Mountain rather than messing with cards that Sky may turn off in a few more months.

I'm very inclined to wait and see. Maybe buy a few DVDs. It's not like I can remember the last time I watched ITV, C4 or Five.

Maybe I should learn German, Arabic, Polish, French and Itallian. I have plenty of that FTA.

I cancelled Sky for over a year. Was thinking of cancelling again. If anything *REALLY* good was on it isn't hard to get a UK sub. I could even swap boxes with someone I know who amazingly wants RTE. (Though it is on NTL Digital cable in bits of UK).

Mossy Monk

i don't watch all that much on ITV to make me take out a UK sub so i'll watch ITV terrestrially. i'll have to get used to the 14:9 pictures again

byte

Well, I've already taken my steps and got UK sub, which meant I also availed of ITV2 and Talksport, which ironically, I never watch/listen to!

I do watch Channel Four quite a bit though and BBC channels. I have never really liked ITV1, and indeed, ITV2 isnt much good either.

Going slightly OT, but I have UK E4 (obviously) and it's showing adverts for E4 +1. I was wondering if ROI E4 is showing the +1 adverts?

Mossy Monk

i saw it the other day. it had a people trying to make a sandwich or something

carrolls

Either even new FTV cards will be useless (one way or another) or UK Gov/ITC will step in.

According to the ammended BBC FTV card post, published yesterday, the new Series 2 FTV cards will work for between 3-5 years.
The old Series 1 cards will be shut off in September.

Gadgie

Originally posted by byte
Well, I've already taken my steps and got UK sub, which meant I also availed of ITV2 and Talksport, which ironically, I never watch/listen to!

Same here!

rovingrover

Hoping Series 2 FTV card will still work - married to same box as main Irish sub but should be okay for other box for ITV, Channel 4 & Five.

If all FTV cards go then...

Will otherwise get a UK sub and cancel after a mionth if that option is proved to work.

If cancelled sub doesn't work then will persaude my sister that there is something decent on RTE and swop her UK sub for my Irish sub and stick up an aerial.

watty

Originally posted by rovingrover
<SNIP!>If cancelled sub doesn't work then will persaude my sister that there is something decent on RTE and swop her UK sub for my Irish sub and stick up an aerial.

Actually you need to swap box and card as some channels are "married" to box.

daveg

I have imported UK boxes with married FTV cards for about a year now. It has been a lucrative business. It looks like it's over now :mad:

Anyway I spoke to my contact in the UK who ships boxes and cards to me. I put the question to him about the FTV cards/BBC FTA/UTV CH4 & CH5. His opinion is that the other channels will either have to go FTA as well or the FTV card system will have to maintained by Sky or UTV. His reasoning for this was that approx 1 million people in the UK have an FTV card and have bought their system to recieve the FTV channels. He feels the goverment/ITC will step in to force ITV/SKY or someone to admin the system. He also said that UTV are making an announcement this week (I think) and he feels it could be that they will either be going FTA or they will admin the system.

I'm passing on what he told me. Most of you out there know more than I do about the system so my comments are open to debate.

BTW whats involved in setting up a UK sub? Can it be done via credit card (Irish sub can). Is it admin same as the FTV system (give name and address and serial number of decoder?)