4Music, the music channel owned by Channel 4 and Bauer Media, is launching on Freesat Thursday. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has started testing an HD version.
It will replace another channel in the group, The Box, and sits alongside music channels Kiss and Magic on the subscription free platform.
Alistair Thom, Managing Director of Freesat, said: “Freesat is all about bringing our viewers the shows they love – and 4Music is bursting with brilliant content. Freesat brings over 200 channels for free as well as a range of on demand services, saving viewers money without compromising on entertainment.”
In addition to music, 4Music also includes comedy, such as Channel 4 hit 8 out of 10 Cats and the reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians. 4Music will also screen the 59th Grammy Awards which will broadcast on February 13.
Matt Rennie, Managing Director at The Box Plus Network, said: “We’re pretty excited to bring our leading youth channel 4Music into Freesat homes, offering up great music, comedy, reality and entertainment shows. It’s particularly good timing just days before our UK premiere of The Grammys”.
In a related development, business channel Bloomberg has been observed testing HD broadcasts via the Astra 2G and could become part of the free-to-air offer at the 28.2 degrees East position.Thus is the first instance of Bloomberg being broadcast in HD via satellite in Europe. The channel is widely distributed across Europe on a number of satellites, but only in SD.
Over 200 free-to-air channels are available through Freesat.