TV in London.

Watched a bit of the 6pm news on BBC 1. It then went to the local London news.

Thing is it said as it always does a message to the effect of ‘We can’t show local news in HD please re-tune to channel X’

Why can’t the BBC in London not show local news in HD and when will it be able to?
Thanks.
«1

Comments

  • Neil_Jones
    Neil_Jones Posts: 9,521 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Because BBC One HD is a national service, not a London one.

    The local news in HD is not just a case of flicking a switch, it requires investment in new hardware, software and uplink charges to the satellite. It will cost money the BBC doesn't have at the moment.
  • Carrot007
    Carrot007 Posts: 4,534 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Neil_Jones wrote: »
    Because BBC One HD is a national service, not a London one.


    Depends how they were watching it.


    On freeview I would expect it to work just fine as no additional spending is required. However I have nopt watched the low quality streams of freeview in yearsd (and the bbc's are probably the best on there).


    Online, again I assume it would just work.


    On Satellite. Then yes, they would need a channel for each area and thus need to pay a lot more. Same for cable.
  • Neil_Jones wrote: »
    Because BBC One HD is a national service, not a London one.

    That makes sense thanks.

    Is there a timeline for getting local stations onto HD?
  • Carrot007 wrote: »
    Depends how they were watching it.

    FreeView Play I believe.

    Would be good regardless of SD/HD if you didn’t have to change channels.
  • Bigphil1474
    Bigphil1474 Posts: 3,366 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    OP, it's same in Yorkshire. Local news is only on BBC1 SD channel.
  • The BBC would need all the local channels broadcasting in HD, which at present they don't. Currently only the programming that is the same across all local instances of BBC1 is broadcast on BBC1 HD, when you want regional programming you have to switch to whichever local SD BBC1 variant you live in.

    To implement it the BBC would have to buy a lot of extra bandwidth both on Astra 28E and on the Freeview network. Can't see the point really, I don't care if my local news is SD or HD.
    Proud member of the wokerati, though I don't eat tofu.Home is where my books are.Solar PV 5.2kWp system, SE facing, >1% shading, installed March 2019.Mortgage free July 2023
  • lammy82
    lammy82 Posts: 594 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper
    It's a shame they haven't managed to come up with any sort of workaround using the interactive services features, even if it just meant treating the viewer to a quarter-screen SD feed of the local news for whichever region they select. That would surely make more sense than 15 minutes of birdsong or whatever.
  • lammy82 wrote: »
    It's a shame they haven't managed to come up with any sort of workaround using the interactive services features, even if it just meant treating the viewer to a quarter-screen SD feed of the local news for whichever region they select. That would surely make more sense than 15 minutes of birdsong or whatever.

    As opposed to just switching channels?
  • lammy82
    lammy82 Posts: 594 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper
    As opposed to just switching channels?

    Yup! It's not professional for a broadcast channel to have 15 minutes of downtime, in the middle of prime time, asking the viewer to change the channel to continue watching, just because of a technical shortcoming.
  • lammy82 wrote: »
    Yup! It's not professional for a broadcast channel to have 15 minutes of downtime, in the middle of prime time, asking the viewer to change the channel to continue watching, just because of a technical shortcoming.

    It's not a technical shortcoming, it's a money shortcoming. See post #7
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 350K Banking & Borrowing
  • 252.7K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 453.1K Spending & Discounts
  • 243K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 619.9K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 176.5K Life & Family
  • 256K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
  • Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.