Utv

marksimpson

If you have Freesat, enter a postcode from England or Wales and retune. ITV1HD will appear on 119. Then use "Customise Channels" to put BBC ONE NI and BBC TWO NI back on 101 an 102.

This will give you all the right channels in the right places... except you won't have UTV, you'll have ITV1 instead.

almillar

Good post yorkie98, and you make the valid point of course that this is all about the usual, cost.
Sod the cost. England and Wales gets ITVHD, Scotland gets STVHD (the same company as UTV), and we're left without it.
I don't want to mess around with regions, I understand that all of UTV's programmes would be SD upscaled (so is BBCNI's AFAIK) but that is an improvement.
If UTV don't want to launch an HD channel it's simple, just like BBC One HD, which runs without the local programming, we should have ITVHD available at channel 119. How much would that cost?!

Paddy2eyes

Can you imagine Julian in HD, be thankful we don't get it.

marksimpson

almillar wrote: »

Good post yorkie98, and you make the valid point of course that this is all about the usual, cost.
Sod the cost. England and Wales gets ITVHD, Scotland gets STVHD (the same company as UTV), and we're left without it.
I don't want to mess around with regions, I understand that all of UTV's programmes would be SD upscaled (so is BBCNI's AFAIK) but that is an improvement.
If UTV don't want to launch an HD channel it's simple, just like BBC One HD, which runs without the local programming, we should have ITVHD available at channel 119. How much would that cost?!

ITV, STV and UTV are three different companies.

BBC Northern Ireland (in line with BBC Scotland and Wales) does not presently run it's channels in HD so nothing is upscaled. BBC ONE HD is a UK wide service, with the National variations to come along in HD in the future.

almillar

marksimpson - all of the above is correct. I can currently receive BBC One HD on Freesat, like the rest of the UK, but not ITVHD. That's my point. I know they're different companies, but I don't care, they need to sort it out between them. ITVHD can be provided to NI at zero cost AFAIK. Stupid licencing is getting in the way.
It's discrimination I tell ya!

yorkie98

It's not discrimination, I wish it were as easy as that. It comes down to 2 things, Programme rights and advertising.

Basically, if all freesat/sky HD viewers were able to get ITV1HD in the EPG easily, we would be watching the ads supplied for the English region, which is of little to no value to us, ITV nor the advertisers.
It hurts UTV in the pocket if you watch an off-region ITV variant as you are not seeing the ads you are intended to see in that region. (This is of course partly their fault as if they were to provide an HD service, this would become irrelevant).
Each of the CH3 franchisees ITV/STV/UTV hold exclusive rights to broadcast in their respective regions via all carriage mediums, thus it is supposed to be made difficult to watch off region. Sky/Freesat control this with the postcode area, although its done yourself on freesat and Sky lock you to your region via your address on file.

As I stated before, UTV will be obliged to provide some kind of HD service at switchover date on terrestrial but I would imagine that any form of HD service on satellite will be long after this, if at all.
It won't be a big problem to link an HD service from UTV studios to the transmitter sites, the links are already in place albeit they might need an upgrade for HD whereas to get UTV on satellite, it has to be sent via landline to the uplink station in London which will be expensive, then they will need to pay for a HD slot and EPG. I cannot envisage UTV being able to bear these costs.

psybear

Could somebody please clarify for me if it is actually possible to view any HD channels in NI via a HD Freeview box??? Some of the posts here suggest it's possible, using a GB postcode, but NI isn't supposed to get Freeview HD until 2012????

marksimpson

psybear I have replied in the other topic.

almillar

yorkie - the discrimination comment was tongue in cheek, and the first thing we NIers shout when something goes wrong!
Anyway, I understand all that you say above re advertising, licensing, technical and cost. Doesn't change my opinion one bit - UTV are in the broadcasting game, they have a massive amount of resource, and if all they can say is they can't afford it, they should hand the license back to ITV, they're doing something wrong if the other ITV regions can manage it.

yorkie98

I'm not the biggest fan of UTV for many reasons but in fairness, UTV are in a unique (and slightly unfortunate) position in that they have the smallest franchise area by population, by a very large margin and also one of the least affluent areas in which to conduct their business. The other two franchisees operate in much bigger areas, STV in most of Scotland and ITV the rest of Scotland, Wales and England (including the Channel Islands).
This means that UTV is somewhat out there on it's own trying to survive in this small, poorly financed area during a world recession whilst fiercely trying to retain it's independance.
It would be all too easy for UTV to roll over and sell out to ITV or STV (there have been attempts in the past) and we could kiss goodbye to all but the very minimum of local programming and the dedication to the local area that UTV does still manage to maintain.
It means that to make the huge capital investment required to broadcast in HD, a significant and not be underestimated amount of money needs to be found.
At this moment, UTV are only under an obligation to provide and HD service when Digital switchover happens and even when this happens I would expect it will still be a long time before local content is produced in HD, the only shows which will show in HD will be those from the main ITV network.
WIth regards to UTV handing back the licence (which would be to Ofcom, not ITV, ITV are licencees in the same way UTV are) this would not be of benefit to anyone and the alternatives do not even bear thinking about.
Firstly, there will not be any new (or existing) setups who would be able to come forward and run the franchise, the financial climate is all wrong, so this leaves UTV being absorbed by either ITV or STV and of these, STV would be the most likely.
The service STV would provide would not be as good as what we get currently, it might be technically slightly better but even if the UTV name is retained, the UTV operation would be scaled back massively, jobs would be lost, the news coverage would suffer and local programs would all but stop.
I honestly think that although I do wish UTV would hurry up and provide a meaningful HD service on platforms other than VM cable, we need to have faith that this will happen within the next 18 months or so but it is hard for UTV to make the investment in comparison to the other companies. On the other hand, I put great value in the fact that we are the only area of the UK which still has it's own totally independant local TV channel and which has a heritage and pride in the area it serves. This is to be treasured and I hope it continues.