Radio and Telly UK Digital TV News

TV shopping channel Argos TV has closed down. The TV version of the laminated book of dreams started broadcasting in 2011, showcasing hundreds of products found in Argos catalogues in their high street stores across the county. The channel formerly broadcast 24 hours a day. The reason for the station’s closure is cited as being [...]

Here at Radio & Telly, we’re seeing increasing interest in the YouView TV offering – the service that combines Freeview, a hard-disc recorder, and extra content on your TV via Broadband. YouView’s available to buy on the high-street, or you can get a free box from BT or TalkTalk If you’re keen to get hold [...]

In March 2013, our podcast team met up with the lovely Sue Holderness, better known to us all as “Marlene” from Only Fools and Horses. Here’s our interview with Sue, where she tells us about her experiences on the show, why it’s so fondly remembered, and whether or not Del will be returning to our [...]

The BBC News channel “countdown sequence” has this week has a revamp – new graphics, and a change to the iconic BBC countdown theme that rolls in before the hourly news bulletin on the 24 hour rolling news channel. The change of theme tune and graphics co-incidences with the move of the BBC News Centre [...]

Happy 2013 everyone, and welcome to a new year! 2013 promises to be an interesting year for digital TV and radio in the UK, and as it’s the first day of a new year, it’s always good to take stock and see what’s happened in the last twelve months. Rather than present you with a [...]

Freeview channel 32 has undergone a change today. Until today, the channel was labelled Big Deal, but has today has become Movie Mix The channel seems to have something of a split personality. What we understand is that the channel does the following: Runs the Bid Plus TV shopping channel from 9am to 8pm Runs [...]

Sky has announced details of its annual Christmas offers designed to tempt people to switch over to Sky in time for the festive season. The headline offer is this: Take out the standard Sky package, and get Sky Movies half-price for 6 months. You can get a free Sky+ recorder, free setup and a Marks [...]

This month, the Sky+ app on the iPhone has undergone a transformation – you can now use it to take control of your Sky box Here’s what you can now do on an iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch: Change channel Use two fingers to fast forward through the ads (30x speed) Pause and rewind live [...]

BT Vision users, or those with new YouView boxes from BT, are in for a bunch of new channels “soon” Various announcements over the last few weeks have show that BT has been putting in a lot of legwork to increase the number of TV channels available to its customers. The recent deals aren’t just [...]

Yet another Freeview channel shuffle has taken place today, but this one’s unlikely to be a bother to anyone… Two text channels have moved from the PSB2 to the COM4 multiplex, meaning that if you’re a dedicated follower of either of these channels, you’ll need to do a rescan: Channel 202 – Rabbit Channel 203 [...]

Now, we don’t want to worry you, but there’s a danger that there’ll be some Freeview hassle to look forward to in 2018. OK, so this is a long way off, but we thought we’d give you as much advance notice as possible… More Freeview HD Let’s soften you up with the good news. Ofcom [...]

BT has today launched its YouView TV service. We take a look at what’s on offer: The Service The YouView service combines Freeview with a large library of on-demand content. With BT, you’ll get the Humax DVR-T1000 YouView box (normally £299) for free, subject to a £6.95 delivery charge and a £49 activation fee. You’ll [...]

The five year Digital Switchover is now complete – Last night, the final analogue TV transmitters in Northern Ireland were taken out of service, and the UK’s TV service is now fully digital. Bye Bye to Analogue So, that’s it for analogue… the TV system that the UK has been using for the last seventy [...]

Earlier today, there were a number of changes made to the Freeview channel numbers. Changes were as follows: The Freeview HD channels moved to channels 100 to channels 105 The Al Jazeera news channel has been removed from channel 84 The Adult channels moved to further now the channel list. They’re now numbered from 171 [...]

Show number 80 of the FrequencyCast podcast, has been released today. FrequencyCast is produced by the Radio and Telly team and covers the latest news on all things TV and radio related, as well as news from the tech world. In show number 80, we look at the following topics: News and listener comments on [...]

The text service Teletext Holidays left Freeview today, the 1st of October 2012 This marks the end of 15 years of the TV text-based holiday breaks service. Until recently, the service was operated by the Daily Mail. The owners made the following statement recently: “Teletext Holidays has been a television platform for over 15 years, [...]

News of a few minor changes to the Freeview Channel lineup in the last few days: Vanished Channels The following two channels have disappeared: Channel 62 – TV Stars Channel 90 – TV News These two channels have always been something of a mystery. These channels appear to be registered in the name of “Cellcast [...]

Sky customers with a Sky+ HD box and a TV that supports 3D will get a free week of 3D TV from Sky in August. From Monday the 13th to Monday the 20th of August 2012, Sky’s 3D channel will be broadcast subscription-free. The 3D channel, great for showing off your expensive TV with 3D [...]

Four years of fun and games with the Digital TV Switchover is coming to an end at last… we don’t want to worry you… but there might be another one on the way… Digital Switchover Mk II OK – Nothing to worry about just yet, but according to a report in the Guardian, the House [...]

Freeview viewers can expect a re-shuffle of some of the TV channel numbers on the 19th of September 2012, it’s been revealed Here is a summary of the changes: Channel 8:  (England and Northern Ireland) will become the slot for “local TV”. We can expect up to 21 local TV services in the UK. In [...]