Radio and Telly UK - News Story

Freesat, the joint satellite TV service from the BBC and ITV, officially launched today at 11am.

The service offers 80 channels of free-to-view TV channels, using a standard satellite dish and a special freesat receiver.

Many of the channels you can get on Freeview are present, including Channel 4, E4, ITV2, ITV3, BBC3, BBC News, CBBC and CiTV. Channel 5 is missing from the lineup, but is expected soon. Other channels include Film 4, True Movies, Movies4Men, Euronews, Men and Motors and Al-Jazeera. See our Freesat channels page for the full list.

To get Freesat, you need a dish pointing in the direction of the Sky Digital satellite (Astra / Eutelsat). If you have an existing Sky dish, chances are this is good enough, otherwise you’ll need to get a dish installed. Freesat’s price for this is £80 (or £120 for two rooms). You’ll get a 45cm to 80 cm mesh-type dish. You’ll also need a special Freesat set-top box to receive Freesat’s channels and Electronic Programme Guide.

As for boxes, there are two types at present – a Standard Definition box (from £49), and a High Definition box (from £120). A receiver with a built-in recorder (to rival Sky+) is reportedly due in July this year.

Freesat Launch day has been an interesting one. None of the four main Freesat retailers appears to actually have stock. Here’s what we’ve discovered so far:

• Currys: No stock. Nothing on the Currys website. We checked in with a Central London store, and were told 4-6 weeks
• Comet: No stock. Calling Comet’s customer service line (08705 425425), we were told 7 days
• John Lewis: Nothing on their website. Rumours that the Humax receiver may be due “later today” in Oxford Street
• Argos: Five boxes listed on their website, but all out of stock. Some branches appear to have stock, espcecially the Bush receivers, but they’re under instructions not to sell them. A call to Argos Customer Services (0870 600 3030) revealed that the Goodmans and Bush models weren’t being sold for “Quality Control reasons”, with one online forum reporting an issue with channel reception on the Bush model. Argos are only able to sell the Humax FoxSat – but no stock in London or the South East.

Apart from the “subscription-free element, a key seller for freesat is “HD”, and they’re offering BBC’s HD channel at launch. They have an exclusive on ITV’s HD Service (soon), which won’t be available on Sky. Sky however, have an exclusive on Channel 4 HD. Commenting on ITV’s decision to go with freesat, Sky said “It would be a strange decision and disappointing for viewers if ITV chooses not to make its service available to 450,000 HD-enabled households.”

What of Sky? Sky’s been offering a free-to-view satellite service for some years – confusingly enough called Freesat from Sky, which offers 200 channels for a one-off £150. They also offer Sky Pay Once, Watch Forever, which for £75 gets you a dish and £200 free-to-view channels.

We’ll be watching this one closely, and featuring this in our next podcast.

More on Freesat on our Freesat page.