talking pictures, that’s tv, +1 channels

[Marcos+Gilson]

I wonder when the full raft of channels will transfer across from Sky Q to stream. Virgin media stream now has all of the channels that are on their standard boxes, including that's tv, talking pictures and all of the +1 channels in a recent upgrade. Plus it has all the Viaplay (Premier) sports channels. The argument here about the constantly requested talking pictures tv not being available on Sky stream because commercially isn't viable doesn't stand when it's on Virgin stream. This is huge update for Virgin stream 

[Marcos+Gilson]

Virgin stream EPG now completely replicates what Virgin customers receive on the TiVo and 360 boxes. They even have sky sports UHD channels 

[GD1]

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@Marcos+Gilson wrote:

 They even have sky sports UHD channels 

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Odly enough, so do Sky!

[mikealanr]

Virgin do have it slightly easier in terms of they are delivering channels via their own network, I don't know if sky have their own data centres or using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) of a cloud provider such as AWS or Azure.

Might explain the slow and steady approach and the high expectations sky seem to have placed on broadcasters in providing a suitable stream.

In any event the recent news of the end of Q, should hopefully expedite the process. Plus one channels, won't make it, the whole point of catch up / watch from start was to try to mitigate the need.

MikeAlanR

[MarkGoldsmith]

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@Marcos+Gilson wrote:

I wonder when the full raft of channels will transfer across from Sky Q to stream. Virgin media stream now has all of the channels that are on their standard boxes, including that's tv, talking pictures and all of the +1 channels in a recent upgrade. Plus it has all the Viaplay (Premier) sports channels. The argument here about the constantly requested talking pictures tv not being available on Sky stream because commercially isn't viable doesn't stand when it's on Virgin stream. This is huge update for Virgin stream 

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Who cares about the +1 channels they are completely pointless in the streaming age.

Also the demand for some of these lower fringe channels isn't that high so personally I couldn't really care if the smaller channels like talking pictures is available by streaming or not.

the broadcast world is changing, linear channels are disappearing at a rapid rate (just look at the number of channels C4 will be closing in the next 24 months). I doubt they will disappear completely and but I suspect linear channels will rapidly shrink to quite low ish numbers within the next 5 years. The PSB will certainly provide a couple of linear channels I'm sure but the commercial stations are clearly seeing the writing in the wall.

[Jporch316]

The lack of +1 channels is made up by being able to watch virtually any show from the start ......

[Gincap]

Freeview licences are open to a 2034 extension so good old fashioned transmission is around for a while yet.  Believe it or not 2024 UK still has dreadful broadband black spots so parts of the country still cannot take up streaming even if they wish too. 

However it is pretty obvious that stream content is the future and these niche channels are starting to roll out apps. 

Blaze, Together TV already broadcast live and offer on demand via apps. Great Player for movies etc. is due along soon plus with the likes of Pluto, Freevee, Plex, Rakuten, Classix to name a few again niche music channels around the world news including Fox, CNN are covered. Oldies as per Talking Pictures but not 100% the same crop up on Classix, arte, bfi and others. 

Basically it's kind of already there all you need is the right streaming device and not a locked down version to receive them. 

Um Apple for one 🤔

[slaters]

Yes I don't see the point of +1 channels now, if you forget something then you have the option of watching from the start on most channels which is really good,  and if your watching on delay another plus point is you can fast foward the ads, or again go to the streaming apps. 

[MarkGoldsmith]

I suspect the freeview extension will need to come as otherwise it would look like people being forced down the streaming route by governments and regulators. In reality, as we have seen, the commercial stations will continue to make the move on their own as it becomes the most commercially viable model for them. Traditional broadcasting mechanisms just aren't generating the ad income anymore to cover the expenses as we are seeing with channel 4. Whilst the BBC and C4 will be the last to pull their traditional broadcast methods due to being PSBs I suspect particularly in the BBcs case this will play a big part in the license fee renewal discussions with the government as they will likely claim they need an increase in the license fee to be in a position to not speed up the move to streaming only. 

[Marcos+Gilson]

I think people are missing the point of my post here - virgin media have now transferred every single channel from their normal cable service on to Virgin stream. Quite often on here people will ask why a certain channel isn't on stream and the answer is often that it takes two to tango. This demonstrates to me that the main reason some channels are not on Sky stream is down to Sky.  By the way Virgin has the restart function on all its channels too. There are some channels missing from Sky stream such as Viaplay - which I would hardly call niche 

[MarkGoldsmith]

Well the fact that Viaplay have pulled out the UK market because they were losing money would imply it not being a well subscribed channel thus being "niche". If it was more mainstream it would have had more subscribers and wouldn't have needed to edit the market and sell back to Premier Sports.

[Jporch316]

I was talking to one of my customers in north wales last week lives in a really remote area ... he's just subscribed to starlink and had a business connection for £90 a month. He gets about 150mbs for that. He also said he can take the satellite receiver anywhere with him in his camper van and basically gets the same bandwidth wherever he goes ...

[Marcos+Gilson]

@MarkGoldsmith @They've have sold the business as a going concern to premier sports - over 400k subscribers isn't niche 

[Jporch316]

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@Marcos+Gilson wrote:

@MarkGoldsmith @They've have sold the business as a going concern to premier sports - over 400k subscribers isn't niche 

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Depends .... if that's global numbers then that's not enough to sustain a viable profitable service 

[Marcos+Gilson]

400k uk subscribers