Freesat must be given time to find its place in the market, but the public service broadcasters should make up their minds where they stand, writes Julian Clover
Freesat finally made its debut this week making much of the same no subscription commitment that has helped make its terrestrial counterpart Freeview such a success. In Brilliant for Everyone, Freesat also has a rather nifty strapline, which also underlines its commitment to the high definition format.
According to Ofcom, there are currently around one million UK homes that already receive free-to-air satellite transmissions, comprised largely of homes that once subscribed to Sky Digital, and kept the box when they decided to spend their money another way.
Sky’s freesatfromsky offer has remained unchanged since it was launched in October 2004. £150 buys you a dish and installation or for £20 you can buy a new smart card to go in that old box you bought from ebay. The original promise was broadly that the £20 card would last for 18 months and so far it seems good value. There’s no sign of the card replacement programme that would trigger the requirement to issue new cards to anyone and with 8 million subscribers you would think twice about starting the process. It’s possible to buy a Freesat receiver for £49 – the same money would also buy you an MTV-branded Sky set-top – and £80 will get you a dish installed. Freesat is going for simplicity rather than fighting Sky on price.
The consumer may not have to commit to an ongoing subscription, but they do need one of the Freesat approved boxes, that come with the required MHEG-5 middleware. The version of the technology already used by Freesat is needed not just for the various interactive services, at this stage from the BBC, but also ITV HD. The commercial broadcaster will use Red Button technology that will allow viewers to opt into the HD broadcasters whenever a high definition programme is being broadcast. Although ITV is beginning to move towards the format is nowhere at the stage of BBC HD, which is at the stage where it has the choice of simulcasting with more than one of its standard definition channels
While ITV is aligned with Freesat, its fellow public service broadcaster Channel 4 has encrypted its HD service, and requires a Sky smart card to view it. Freesat needs to ensure that by the time digital switchover is in full swing it has all of the Big Five broadcasters and their digital only channels. In other words to replicate completely the content of the public service multiplexes on Freeview. If it requires the regulator to step in then so be it; these are the same broadcasters who were arguing that they should be gifted additional DTT capacity to ensure a universal service for public HD channels.
Freesat will I suspect be a slow burner, it needs a full set of public broadcasters, more HD channels than the one and a quarter it has at present, and maybe along the way other broadcasters will choose to drop their encryption and dual illuminate on both Sky and Freesat. Only when the digital switchover is in full swing will its success be able to be measured.
