Lots of Freesat channels dropped without notice

[thecaretaker]

The plug has been pulled on nine Freesat channels. All channels operated by Narrative Entertainment were removed from the Freesat channel list.

Affected channels includes GREAT! TV, GREAT! action, GREAT! movies and GREAT! romance, POP, Tiny POP and POP Max.

The channels were withdrawn without prior warning.

Also planned to go from Freesat are 4Music, The Box, Kerrang! TV, Kiss TV and Magic TV. They will be going online. Other C4 channels may aslo do the same before the year is out.

There has been no official announcement from Freesat. As commented previously, Freesat and Freeview have been taken over by Freely. Maybe they are concentrating on the new Freely service making Freesat dead in the water.

Colin! Better get the cheap biscuits

[Eddy]

I Fear more and more of the freeview and freesat channels will be disappearing in favour of online content.

Sky are actively pushing their online service, and with the dropping prices of broadband, particularly FTTP when it becomes available makes for a better more stable service (apparently)

[thecaretaker]

I've just been reading some interesting comments from people about the problems going online to watch TV. Issues like they are not happy that they will be monitored via their ip address as to what channels they are watching. Broadcasters will love that. That you won't be able to record programmes to watch later and have the ability to fast forward during the ad breaks. Broadcasters will in effect be forcing users to watch their adverts.

They are annoyed to get Freely (Free TV), they will have to buy a new Freely TV. Currently, a Hisense TV. They will not be providing a set top box, dongle or add the service to any existing TV's. I can see limiting its access this much might not make it a very popular option. To get the linier stations on any other streaming service you have to pay a subscription.

The problem is, they assumed there would be a 4-5 year transition period but lesser broadcasters are so cash strapped, it looks like Freeview and Freesat could end (bar the main channels) by the end of this year.