If you rely on Freeview to watch terrestrial channels from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Dave you will be pleased with the latest update from the television company. The UK government has extended Freeview’s license for another decade, as it became known this week.
The UK government will support the cost of ensuring that channels such as ITV2, E4, GB News and Sky Arts are free to viewers across the UK by at least 2034. Freeview is home to some of the largest canals in the country. including ratings such as Gogglebox on Channel 4, Love Island on ITV2 and Married At First Sight which airs on E4.
Media Secretary John Whittingdale confirmed: “Today we guarantee the future of Freeview TV and a diverse range of popular news, entertainment and documentary channels well into the 2030s. We are also protecting an important medium for our public broadcasters so that they can be theirs Be able to serve the public in the coming years. “
The move is intended to ensure that public broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are guaranteed to have a place on the Freeview platform. Freeview is owned by the parent company Digital UK, which was a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and the broadcaster Arqiva – until it left the project last year. It acquired Freesat on July 8th to share technology between the two free-to-watch options.
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Freesat has some advantages over Freeview, most notably that the service takes advantage of the additional capacity of satellite transmission to offer a choice of 24 high definition channels including those from BBC, ITV, Channel 5, Discovery Networks, France 24, Paramount Network , Bloomberg, RT UK and TRT World.
However, Freeview Play – which requires an internet connection to bring catch-up services to the TV Guide – contains more content than Freesat. If you are using a Freeview Play TV or set-top box, you can “travel back in time” by scrolling to the left in the TV guide and jump to previously broadcast programs that are still available from BBC iPlayer, My5, ITV Hub, All4 and Others are available.
In total, content is retrieved from more than 10 on-demand catch-up services. Earlier this year, Freeview Play hit the milestone of 30,000 hours of free on-demand content, horror bites, STV players and BBC thanks to shows and films from BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, My5, UKTV Play, CBS Catchup Channels UK Sounds.
Freeview Play is pre-installed on a range of smart TVs, set-top boxes and smartphone apps on iPhone, iPad and Android.
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