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All posts by Briantist

Below are all of Briantist's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.


Trevor Harris: A satellite transponder costs about £4m a year to hire, and it's probably more when the BBC doesn't own it direct, but via Sky.

Knock £4m out of a distribution budget of £20m - that's a "required" saving of 20%.

The "content" budget for "red button" is £14.9m, which makes the service cost more to distribute than provide content for. The only other services that do this are BBC HD (£2.1m content, £8.2m distribution) and BBC Parliament (£2m content, £4.7m distribution).

Most services are content-cost heavy: BBC One, for example content is £1131m, distribution £51m (4.5%); BBC Two £421 and £21m, (4.9%), BBC Three £84.7m and £3.9m (4.6%).

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If you want to look at the figures for the other services, see page F7 of http://downloads.bbc.co.u….pdf .

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Friday 26 August 2011 9:29PM

john davies: The usual reason is that your signal is too strong. If you have a booster or amplifier remove it from your system and test again. It is the signal quality that matters, the signal strength should be around the 75% mark on most boxes/sets.

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Mark Aberfan Aerials : I think the general way the "wind is blowing" is that these "interactive streams" are seen as offering poor value.

They were set up in the pre-PVR pre-YouTube world, where they were a way to offer "interactive" content in so much as they offered a little bit more choice.

I suspect that, with many people now being able to watch TRUE on-demand (and not NVOD, near-video-on-demand) services, these extra streams are of little use outside the odd major sports event (every couple of years).

For example, BBC Parliament is off-air during the Olympics so BBC three can expand into an all-day service. Most of the stuff that would have gone on a "red button" service will be on a "proper" channel - one with EPG listings and that appears in newspaper listings.

It would be much better for the BBC to make these savings and use the money saved to provide HD versions of the other BBC services, especially the "national" ones, BBC three/CBBC, BBC FOUR/Cbeebies and BBC News (when they move to Broadcasting House).

The "red button" services do offer a little something for 5 million non-Internet homes, who can't cope with anything more complex than super-Ceefax.

BBC Red Button must be come bottom of most people's idea of what the BBC does - it lacks a clear purpose.

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Even now, I can't understand why the BBC doesn't use the five remaining satellite streams to provide BBC three+1 and BBC FOUR+1 for the majority of the time, at least people would understand what they were for.

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Friday 26 August 2011 10:10PM

Mr P Watmough: To answer some of your questions.

Waltham is in the first stange of switchover, the rest of the multiplexes are at full power from the second stage, Wednesday 31st August 2011.

Belmont has completed switchover.

Please see Digital Region Overlap | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice for details of overlapping regions.

The picture quality will not change because of the HD service, those services are on a separate multiplex.

The switchover was fully planned and tested over the last several years, it is rather an insult to suggest otherwise.

I'm not surprised that Freeview do not reply, they are a marketing service for the set-top boxes, and do not have any part in the transmissions.

If you have too strong a signal, your equipment will fail. Remove any boosters or amplifiers from your system if this is the case, if you have none, fit an attenuator, they cost about a fiver.

It is not possible to be more specific as your not provided your full postcode.



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Phil Beaumont: There are no faults reported on the BBC services.

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David Manser: If you have not done a "first time installation" as required you may find your box now has the incorrect services.

Otherwise, please see Digital Region Overlap | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice .

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Saturday 27 August 2011 2:14PM

NottsUK: Actually, what they say is correct.

Looking at this week - Weekly Total Viewing Summary :

BBC One, share 20.7%
BBC TWO, share 5.9%
ITV 1, share 12.4% (+1, 0.7%, HD 0.5%)
Channel 4, share 4.8% (+1 0.9%)
Channel 5, share 4.0%
5USA,+1 1.0%
5*, +1, 0.5%
BBC three, 1.6%
BBC FOUR, 0.6%
BBC HD, 0.2%
BBC News 3.2%
Film4, +1, 1.7%
ITV2, +1, 2.5%
ITV3, +1, 2.0%
ITV4, +1, 1.1%
More4, +1, 1.2%
E4, +1, 1.9%

Total - 67.4% share. That's TWO THIRD of viewing is to these channels.

Compare - Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, 4, News - share 3.9% in total.

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