If you want it… come and get it… 

4 September 2014 tbs.pm/5728

The beginning of September has seen Freeview undergo a reorganization of its channels, with the Children’s and News channels moving up the EPG. But with this over the last month has seen many new channels launch onto the platform itself such as Tru TV covering general entertainment, TBN – a religious network marking its presence but not launching until January 2015, several new channels as well as accompaniment to those already broadcasting and in some areas their Local TV channels broadcasting either Test Transmissions or a full service.

Compared to even two years ago, Freeview has expanded beyond all recognition. Allowing channels which before only on satellite to stake their claim to a slot, also this has seen the rise of new companies moving into this area. The Discovery Group launching Quest, CBS with the Reality and soon their Action channels, Movie Mix and Movies 4 Men from the Sony Entertainment Television group.

Suddenly the American broadcasters are tapping into a untried market, the only experience of this kind was done by ABC/Disney when they launched ABC1 on Freeview a few years ago. Though unperturbed by this experience, the rush of foreign broadcasters has seen Freeview evolving into something the rest of the world is used to especially in North America and Japan. With Channel 5 purchased by Viacom and the owners of the MTV and Comedy Central channels, the first of five former terrestrial channels have been brought, plus with foreign broadcasting groups looking at ITV as well, the shape of Freeview will change even more.

In Germany, two of the biggest former commercial broadcasters Sat.1 and Pro Sieben merged and was subsequently bought by Haim Saban to create one of Europe’s biggest media giants alongside the Bertelsmann group which owns RTL. As such these broadcasters are competition for the state broadcasters ARD and ZDF, but with this comes a difference. Sat.1, Pro Sieben and RTL have no regional commitments while ARD have their local affiliates which also broadcast as separate services to compliment the national Das Erste service run by ARD.

With all these broadcasters now looking at Freeview, it will be interesting to see where it ends a year or two done the line with the inclusion of Local TV as well. Could it be that British broadcasting could be changing for the most significant time since mid-90’s?

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2 responses to this article

Eric Stoph 6 November 2014 at 12:08 am

Robert Willaims did write:

” Sat.1, Pro Sieben and RTL have no regional commitments while ARD have their local affiliates which also broadcast as separate services to compliment the national Das Erste service run by ARD.”

This is incorrect.

ARD does not have local affiliates. The regional broadcasters are the members of the ARD and produce the programs for Das Erste as well as operating their own regional services on radio and TV (the “third” tv program).

Even Wonkeypedia explains this in English —

QUOTE
ARD (full name: Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland – Consortium of public broadcasters in Germany, details below at name) is a joint organization of Germany’s regional public-service broadcasters.
UNQUOTE

ARD is not like the centralized managed BBC, nor NPR producing its own programs for the network, but has a similarity to PBS where member stations produce and provide the program content,

ARD has similarities to the pre-1990 ITV “channel 3” regional network, where the independent regional companies produced the programs for the ITV program service.

RTL does in fact provide a 30 minute regional news program at 18:00h.
Again from Wonkeypedia

QUOTE
Es existieren heute vier Regionalmagazine, die unter dem RTL-Logo firmieren:

RTL Nord für Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein
RTL Nord für Niedersachsen und Bremen
RTL West für Nordrhein-Westfalen
RTL Hessen für Hessen
UNQUOTE

Sat.1 transmits a news program at 17:30h for various regions, either produced by its-self or other local TV news companies.

See details again at Wonkeypedia,

Clearly both RTL and Sat.1 do have commitments to regional news.

What the relevance of these misrepresentations of German TV, both public and commercial, have to an article on Freeview is unclear.

Perhaps you should move your satellite dish to point to 19,2 East to experience first hand the quality that is German public television?

Rob Williams 7 November 2014 at 12:45 am

The context I was putting it in Mr Stoph is to do the with the rise of the new regional television which is coming on city by city in the UK.

Also to make another point, my satellite dish is already pointed to 19,2 East to watch German Public Television and I have to say that I prefer that to what both the BBC and ITV offer on a nightly basis.

However I take your points and you have educated myself on German Public Television some more than I already knew.

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