New FTV scheme imminent ?

Icehouse

According to http://www.newtownlive.co.uk/ the much-rumoured pay-once-for-a-card scheme will come to fruition.

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Featured: Free To View Solution Expected
By: Henry Beavis



NEWTOWN:LIVE EXCLUSIVE

Broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and five are expected to announce shortly that Free To View (FTV) Solus viewing cards are soon to be reintroduced.

The cards, which allow British license fee payers to view ITV1, Channel 4 and five via Digital Satellite without subscription to Sky, will be available for a one-off fee of £22.

The cards were previously funded and administered by the BBC, but the corporation stopped funding them earlier in the year when it began broadcasting without encryption, meaning the cards were no longer necessary to view BBC channels.

This meant that viewers would have to obtain a viewing card by subscribing to a Sky pay-tv package in order to view the commercial terrestrial channels through Digital Satellite.

Viewers in areas such as Mid Wales, where terrestrial broadcasts are patchy and in some areas non existent, have become dependent on Digital Satellite to receive the five basic channels. Digital Satellite is currently the only digital television platform available in the area - the new resolution will once more eliminate the need for viewers to subscribe to a pay-tv package to receive ITV1, Channel 4 and five.

Lembit Öpik - MP for Montgomeryshire and Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats - has been closely following the situation:

"Our current understanding is that customers will be required to pay a one off fee of £22 for a Free To View (FTV) Solus viewing card which will last for two years.

"We have been pressing the Government for months to resolve this problem. While we welcome the fact that a decision now seems imminent, we would have liked to have seen these cards issued for free.

"This decision has been a very long time coming. We hope there's still time for the Government to improve the deal for the viewers but at least this could potentially put an end to the uncertainty. We will continue to press the Government to make a formal announcement on this as soon as possible."

Newtown:Live has been reporting on this issue since the start, with a run of national exclusive stories and in-depth coverage:

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Surely this plan may be blown out of the water if Sky launch a Freeview rival, unless of course this is it, and we get extra channels as part of the card fee.

loftus

Sounds good to me.

lawhec

I had that feeling that most of what is written above would be the best way to solve this mess, where the channels are freely available to the viewer as long as they pay a one off fee to cover the production & handling of the card. Many countires in Europe do this. However the £22 "for two years" worries me a bit as this makes it in effect a subscription. The one-off fee should be exactly that, and not a renewable one.

I somehow wouldn't hold this talk of two years as being cast in stone .
It may be some poetic license in the writing of the journo involved.
I can hear an outcry regarding having to "subscribe" yet again.

It could be that, you will have to pay your £22 each time the encryption is changed, which might be a lot longer than every two years.

mm