4HD and All4 Leaving Freesat

TheDriver

Just got an email from freesat saying 4HD is leaving freesat (SD remaining) but also rollback is ending. Whats happened?

corm500

Just got an email throught to say that All4 and $hd are leaving Freesat this Thursday:eek:
Just for anyone that has set up recordings on those channels

corm500

This is the full text:

We’re sorry to announce that All 4 and 4HD will be leaving Freesat on Thursday 22nd February, 2018.

Channel 4 is still available in standard definition, but any recordings you have scheduled for 4HD will need to be re-set in SD (via channel 104).

E4, More 4, 4seven and Film4 remain unaffected and can be accessed via the TV guide as usual, but the rollback guide and catch-up TV for all of the Channel 4 channels will no longer be available via your Freesat box.

If you have any questions about these changes please read our Q&A here, and to find out where else you can watch All 4 please visit all4.com/how-to-watch

Thanks,
The Freesat Team

homer911

Damn, we were all hoping for Filmfour HD, guess this wont be happening. I wonder if it will remain free-to-air?

tsue921i8wljb3

corm500 wrote: »

This is the full text:

We’re sorry to announce that All 4 and 4HD will be leaving Freesat on Thursday 22nd February, 2018.

Channel 4 is still available in standard definition, but any recordings you have scheduled for 4HD will need to be re-set in SD (via channel 104).

E4, More 4, 4seven and Film4 remain unaffected and can be accessed via the TV guide as usual, but the rollback guide and catch-up TV for all of the Channel 4 channels will no longer be available via your Freesat box.

If you have any questions about these changes please read our Q&A here, and to find out where else you can watch All 4 please visit all4.com/how-to-watch

Thanks,
The Freesat Team

Are they leaving Freeview as well and going back behind the Sky paywall, or is it Freesat only? Desperate blow for Freesat anyway.

stephend2000

Channel 4's sister channels (The Box, Box Hits etc.) have also been removed from freesat listings but remain unencrypted on 28.2e. I'm wondering if C4HD will remain FTA after Thursday.

Alun

stephend2000 wrote: »

I'm wondering if C4HD will remain FTA after Thursday.

Me too, I guess we'll find out.

On my Mediaportal setup I've no 4HD EPG entries past this Saturday 24th at the moment. Channel 4 and 4+1 are still populated for the coming 7 days.

If it's just the channel disappearing from the Freesat EPG, but remaining FTA on Astra 28.2E I can cope with that technically, but I don't fancy going back to SD if I can help it.

Any news on what the cause of all this is? I can't find anything on the Freesat website.

tsue921i8wljb3

Alun wrote: »

Me too, I guess we'll find out.

On my Mediaportal setup I've no 4HD EPG entries past this Saturday 24th at the moment. Channel 4 and 4+1 are still populated for the coming 7 days.

If it's just the channel disappearing from the Freesat EPG, but remaining FTA on Astra 28.2E I can cope with that technically, but I don't fancy going back to SD if I can help it.

Any news on what the cause of all this is? I can't find anything on the Freesat website.

It seems to have come completely out of the blue. Freesat are blaming Channel 4.

https://twitter.com/freesat_tv/status/965930182904303616

Schorpio

Link to freesat news article for whoever didn't get the email. Linky

Very odd decision.

tsue921i8wljb3

Hugely unprofessional from Channel 4.

https://twitter.com/freesat_tv/status/965938951738576898

TheDriver

lot more to this story, toys out of the pram maybe? C4 has become very poor lately compared to BBC/ITV/C5

tsue921i8wljb3

TheDriver wrote: »

lot more to this story, toys out of the pram maybe? C4 has become very poor lately compared to BBC/ITV/C5

Like TV3's attitude to Saorview only worse to actually pull a HD channel.

https://twitter.com/a516digital/status/965939348813344768

stephend2000

All Channel 4's sister channels in HD are encrypted on Sky, C4HD may be following this trend due to a deal struck with Sky.

ShaneOC

No mention of any change on FreeView. This is certainly a step in the wrong direction for FreeSat.

Is Channel 4 HD available on Sky these days?

tsue921i8wljb3

It seems Channel 4 were not happy with a change in Freesat's carriage fees.

http://www.seenit.co.uk/channel-4-pulls-hd-and-catch-up-app-from-freesat/

lgs 4

I wonder if Channel 4 is selling the transponder and squeezing everything on to 10714 H or 10729 V.It's a big blow to Freesat, I will be watching less Channel 4 now

Tigerandahalf

Just saw the email. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.
It is a shame but there is nothing big on that channel anyway.

The All4 app may still work with chromecast.

A row over carriage fees it seems.

http://www.seenit.co.uk/channel-4-pulls-hd-and-catch-up-app-from-freesat/

TheDriver

Sounds like it will all sort itself out

Johnboy1951

stephend2000 wrote: »

Channel 4's sister channels (The Box, Box Hits etc.) have also been removed from freesat listings but remain unencrypted on 28.2e. I'm wondering if C4HD will remain FTA after Thursday.

Alun wrote: »

Me too, I guess we'll find out.

On my Mediaportal setup I've no 4HD EPG entries past this Saturday 24th at the moment. Channel 4 and 4+1 are still populated for the coming 7 days.

I have the full 7 days EPG on my FTA setup ..... but now wondering if it is just pulling the same EPG for HD & SD and that is why it is showing here.

Hopefully it will remain FTA and not go behind Sky's paywall.

I have never tried All4 ...... is that geo-locked or freely available in Ireland?

If it's just the channel disappearing from the Freesat EPG, but remaining FTA on Astra 28.2E I can cope with that technically, but I don't fancy going back to SD if I can help it.

Any news on what the cause of all this is? I can't find anything on the Freesat website.

Alun

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Hopefully it will remain FTA and not go behind Sky's paywall.

I hope so too.

I have never tried All4 ...... is that geo-locked or freely available in Ireland?

Freely available, at the moment at least.

Johnboy1951

Alun wrote: »

I hope so too.


Freely available, at the moment at least.

Thanks ..... signed up but my first try did not go well

lgs 4

Originally Posted by stephend2000 View Post
I'm wondering if C4HD will remain FTA after Thursday.
Don,t punish the viewer

Alun

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Thanks ..... signed up but my first try did not go well

Sorry, should have said, Live TV doesn't work but all the catch-up and box set stuff does.

Johnboy1951

Alun wrote: »

Sorry, should have said, Live TV doesn't work but all the catch-up and box set stuff does.

Ah, thanks ..... will try again later

Edit:

Was able to view clips ..... but no episodes played.

Oh well, I won't miss it as I never had it before

galtee boy

So after Thursday, there is no way to record and series link CH4 HD in Ireland unless you have Virgin TV or live in a Freeview spillover area. There is no 4HD on any of Sky, eir or Vodafone.

Johnboy1951

galtee boy wrote: »

So after Thursday, there is no way to record and series link CH4 HD in Ireland unless you have Virgin TV or live in a Freeview spillover area. There is no 4HD on any of Sky, eir or Vodafone.

Is that certain?
Is it being taken off FTA Satellite also?

TheDriver

It must have been some increase in price.

galtee boy

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Is that certain?
Is it being taken off FTA Satellite also?

Don't know, but even if it remains fta on satellite, if it's not on an EPG, it can't be series linked. Don't know about anyone else, but I watch very little TV live, I record most stuff and watch in my own time, so I won't be watching much CH4 from now on, it would want to be some extremely interesting program, to make me want to watch it in blurry standard definition.

Dymo

Got to get the priorities right...

(July 2017)

The broadcaster made record revenues of £995m and experienced a growth of more than 20% in viewing and revenues from on-demand service All4 to more than £100m

Channel 4’s outgoing chief executive was paid a record £1m in his final full year in charge of the broadcaster.

Channel 4’s chairman, Charles Gurassa, defended Abraham’s pay: “We just had our best ever year on [delivering] our remit. We have knocked the lights out on that and we should be pleased that we are paying David as much as we are for what he and the team have achieved.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/12/channel-4-chief-david-abraham-receives-record-pay-package

Paying 75m for Bake Off wouldn't have helped the balance sheet either...
https://www.standard.co.uk/stayingin/tvfilm/the-great-british-bake-off-channel-4-paid-75-million-to-take-show-from-bbc-a3343801.html

Then.....

(February 2018)

A Channel 4 spokesperson told SEENIT: “We’re disappointed Freesat is changing its charging structure, leading to a very significant cost increase for Channel 4, which ultimately takes funding away from our content investment budget. To reduce the overall burden of our Freesat costs and make internal savings we have regrettably given notice to withdraw All 4 and C4 HD while we consider our long term relationship with Freesat.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/05/channel-4-appoint-foundry-boss-alex-mahon-chief-executive/

So Channel 4 has record revenues, the chairman celebrates the success of their remit & the team in bonuses, then in 8 Months a new CEO comes in and the same chairman then paints a slightly less rosy picture of the broadcasting landscape, commenting on the new CEO being "brilliantly placed to help steer Channel 4 through the competitive challenges and opportunities ahead.

How making Channel 4 less attractive to watch for viewers by removing HD from Freesat is going to help Channel 4 stave off "the competitive challenges" would be anyone's guess, but ultimately the losers are PSB viewers...again.

I hope viewers rightly give both parties a load of grief over this.

My guess is it's a bit of a Mexican stand-off to see how much flak Channel 4 get from the public, whilst also putting the heebie jeebies up Freesat to negotiate "a better deal".

https://www.channel4.com/4viewers/contact-us

Johnboy1951

galtee boy wrote: »

Don't know, but even if it remains fta on satellite, if it's not on an EPG, it can't be series linked. Don't know about anyone else, but I watch very little TV live, I record most stuff and watch in my own time, so I won't be watching much CH4 from now on, it would want to be some extremely interesting program, to make me want to watch it in blurry standard definition.

Still showing full 7 day EPG here, which would be the same as that on the SD channel.

Tigerandahalf

Is C4HD still not on Sky UK?

The worry is that ITVHD would be pulled which would be a bigger blow given that they carry a lot of sports.

galtee boy

How much grief will CH4 get over this ? It may not be much, how many UK viewers rely solely on Freesat for their tv ? Not many I would guess.

Tigerandahalf

galtee boy wrote: »

How much grief will CH4 get over this ? It may not be much, how many UK viewers rely solely on Freesat for their tv ? Not many I would guess.

2m

Freeview is about 20m.

Sky about 8m

http://www.barb.co.uk/tv-landscape-reports/tracker-uk-households-by-tv-platform/

Alun

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Still showing full 7 day EPG here, which would be the same as that on the SD channel.

I've just deleted and reloaded the Freesat EPG on my Mediaportal setup, and the 4HD EPG only goes up to Saturday at 6am and no further. Normal channel 4 EPG is full 7 days.

Harry Palmr

they have my tweet! :mad:

Schwanz

Major loss this to Freesat, if ITV & BBC go this route then it could spell the end of the service.

Tigerandahalf

Schwanz wrote: »

Major loss this to Freesat, if ITV & BBC go this route then it could spell the end of the service.

BBC won't as they have a service obligation.
Freesat are a bbc/itv joint venture so perhaps those channels are safe.

I watch a small bit of rugby on C5HD and they also have the Championship highlights so any loss of HD there would be a blow.

Alun

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Ah, thanks ..... will try again later

Edit:

Was able to view clips ..... but no episodes played.

Oh well, I won't miss it as I never had it before

I just checked my account details on the All4 website and it appears I've entered a UK address so maybe that's it. Just look up some random UK address on Google and try that, I'm English so I used the address I grew up at

I'm not using a VPN though so it's certainly not geolocked.

Johnboy1951

Alun wrote: »

I just checked my account details on the All4 website and it appears I've entered a UK address so maybe that's it. Just look up some random UK address on Google and try that, I'm English so I used the address I grew up at

I'm not using a VPN though so it's certainly not geolocked.

I think maybe it does not like that I use Linux and not Windows!

Even though if that is the case why are they showing me clips and not episodes?

I don't think I will bother ... not worth the effort to me.
Thanks for helping

Gerry Wicklow

Hopefully this is just grandstanding similar to the Discovery Vs Sky tiff a while back.

TheDriver

No harm sending c4 a message on their website. I used Belfast postcode as I assume they won't listen to ROI

dublinman1990

When I read this story earlier; it certainly gave me a surprise considering I watch C4HD FTA on Satellite If 4HD goes off FTA by having a new deal with Sky; well it certainly would be a disgraceful move from Channel 4 if they try to pull tricks on more of their viewers. It could also show the broadcaster to be complete fools considering now that 4K broadcasting is very slowly becoming the norm across some parts of the world.

I just can't understand the amount of ad revenue they got from their last report. It is bizzare to say the least.

It said from July 2017; it reported £995 million from ad revenue. Just £5 million short of £1 billion?

Their programming budget is roughly half that amount at £500 million.

And now they don't want to pay a seemingly modest increase in new EPG fees to stay on Freesat?

This stuff just boggles my mind even more into a more confusing direction.

Channel 4 are certainly acting like spoilt brats if they are going the direction of getting more money from Sky in the future.

Atlantic Dawn

They were actually beginning to show some decent documentaries on it recently, will miss it myself in HD.

Alun

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

They were actually beginning to show some decent documentaries on it recently, will miss it myself in HD.

Not to mention formula one, for the upcoming season at least.

Gerry Wicklow

I'm still confused. It seems they are leaving Freesat because of increased fees. I haven't seen any mention of them going behind a paywall. Freesat is only an EPG service so they should be available FTA or have I missed something?

TheDriver

True hence carriage fees are only for EPG. If they are going up so much, why aren't all the small time channels jumping ship?

Johnboy1951

Alun wrote: »

I've just deleted and reloaded the Freesat EPG on my Mediaportal setup, and the 4HD EPG only goes up to Saturday at 6am and no further. Normal channel 4 EPG is full 7 days.

I deleted the Ch.4 HD EPG data and reference on my tvheadend backend last night.
Then re-enabled it to automatically get the EPG.

This morning it has a full 7 Day EPG.

So for now, on FTA, there seems to be no impediment to full use.

Hopefully that situation remains for the future.

Alun

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I deleted the Ch.4 HD EPG data and reference on my tvheadend backend last night.
Then re-enabled it to automatically get the EPG.

This morning it has a full 7 Day EPG.

So for now, on FTA, there seems to be no impediment to full use.

Hopefully that situation remains for the future.

Interesting. What method is your tvheadend setup using to get the EPG?

On my Mediaportal setup it's getting it from the official Freesat EPG frequency on 11426000kHz and definitely stops on Saturday morning.

EDIT: Just cranked up EPG Collector there to see how many entries they both find ...

            HD    SD
Freesat  102   249
Sky       226   226

lgs 4

Any statement from Channel 4 to whats going to happen tomorrow?

PabloAndRoy

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I deleted the Ch.4 HD EPG data and reference on my tvheadend backend last night.
Then re-enabled it to automatically get the EPG.

This morning it has a full 7 Day EPG.

So for now, on FTA, there seems to be no impediment to full use.

Hopefully that situation remains for the future.

This might be coming from the "OpenTV: Sky UK" grabber. What is the EPG Source on the channel itself in the web gui? Mine for Channel 4 HD says "opentv-skyuk-4075: opentv-skyuk-4075 (OpenTV: Sky UK)"

I have both switched on and it seems to be the OpenTV one that most of my "Freesat" channels use for some reason, even though they are being populated to tvheadend via a Freesat Bouquet. I never figured that bit of tvheadend out properly. As long as it works I don't mess with it.

Anyway, if C4 HD stays FTA we can still get 7 day EPG on tvheadend via the OpenTV grabber.

Rick_

The channel is coming off the Freesat EPG but will be staying FTA so you can tune it in on non-Freesat mode and you can continue to watch. This of course doesn't affect anyone already using a FTA receiver or Sky as nothing is changing in that sense. Hopefully it is just a stand-off and a deal will be struck last minute for Freesat viewers.