This is an accompanying article to my contribution on this week’s episode of The Pod Delusion. You can listen below. This week, Freeview has had one of its occasional retuning events. As new channels come and old channels go, the channel list becomes increasingly messy until the point where the powers-that-be decide enough is enough […]
How to break Freeview overnight
A long time ago — perhaps a year ago — my Freeview box flashed up a little notice that appears from time to time. It notifies me that new software is available to download, and it assures me that this will definitely result in an improvement in the service. Or words to that effect. Normally, […]
An Easter egg on Freeview
This is interesting. We are used to the idea of Easter eggs (hidden extras) in DVDs and the like. But how could there be an Easter egg on television? Unless you are like me, it is probably not very exciting. But if you miss those late nights in the company of Carole Hersee and Bubbles […]
ABC1, Virgin 1 and BBC Two 2
I am quite a fan of Freeview. Even though I hardly ever watch any television these days, I think it is so wonderful to have that kind of choice fairly hassle-free for £20-odd. There have been quite a lot of changes to Freeview recently. First came the unexpected and abrupt death of ABC1. It wasn’t […]
BSkyB, Disney, RTL and Viacom should all be locked in or forfeit a crystal
I wonder if one of the great promises of digital television will not be kept in the long run. Theoretically, Freeview offers viewers more choice than the old five analogue channels. At first it was true. As well as the five channels we already knew, ONdigital launched with plenty of sport and film channels, childrens’ […]
2006 has gone
Well a happy new year to you, now that we are actually in it. I notice that a few bloggers (like Will) have been posting their top five posts. I can assure you that the five most-viewed posts of the year will not have been my five best posts of the year. They will just […]
Five US’s “quality” schedule, Freeview’s “simplicity”
Somebody calling themselves John (but where are the credentials, huh?) left a comment on my post about Channel Five’s new channels: It is a lie that is always perpertrated by snobs like this that all U.S. TV is crap. There is SO MUCH US TV, that there is plenty of good TV, you just have […]
Freeview? Peeview more like!
five (that’s Channel Five to you and me) is set to take its first tentative steps into the world of multichannel with the launch of two new channels: five us (Five U.S.) and five life (not to be confused with Five Live). They’re both going to be launched on Freeview, which is good news, isn’t […]
I hope the translator was a lip reader
This evening I had a look at Film4’s first free night. Enjoyed Lost in Translation. But oh dear. The first ad break — the entirity of which was bought by Renault — went out in silence. It looked like a lot of effort went into it aswell. I’m sure there was a new advert there, […]
Un-nice television logos
FilmFour is Free, you surely must have noticed. Except that in the middle of the huge campaign to alert us all to the fact that the respected film channel is coming to Freeview, Channel 4 only went and decided to change its name. The new name is Film4. It’s not a huge change, but that […]