Fun Kids, the 2009 Sony Radio Digital Station of the year, will be broadcasting on the national DAB network throughout the summer.

Fun Kids starts broadcasting from 27th June and will be on-air until 3 October.

As reported, Setanta Sports went off-air yesterday, 23rd June, after going into administration.

Disney-owned sports service ESPN has just bought up the rights to show 46 Premier League matches from the 2009/2010 football season, and it seems that they have geared up very quickly to offer ESPN on existing services

Tonight, Freeview channel 34, previously occupied by Setanta, is showing the ESPN America. To view this, you either need a Top Up TV Anytime box or a Freeview box / IDTV that has a TopUp or Setanta card. ESPN is being offered free to Top Up TV subscribers, but it’s not clear how long for.

Seems that ESPN has been quick to fill the void offered by Setanta.

More when we have it.

A placeholder for a service called Trove has been added to Freeview.

Trove on channel 306 will be an interactive service (games, weather, travel offers and retail).

Rumour has it, a special Trove-enabled Freeview box will be required.

Many Top Up TV Anytime users are reporting that their boxes have been upgraded from software version v3.59 to v4.07. No information as yet on what this update addresses.

Setanta Sports finally pulled the plug on it’s UK TV operation this evening after numerous financial problems. The UK wing of the firm is no longer trading or broadcasting.

For more information on this, see our Setanta Help and Advice page

It’s been on the cards for weeks, but today at 2:30pm, troubled Setanta Sports finally went into administration.

For information on this, and how it affects Setanta’s 1.2 million UK customers, see our new Setanta Help and Advice page

Setanta Sports has been in serious trouble for a while as we have reported recently. This evening, it seems the fatal blow may have been struck.

Setanta’s big offering is their coverage of English Premier League matches not screened by Sky. 46 were planned to be shown on Setanta in the upcoming 2009/10 season, but Setanta has failed to make a scheduled payment of £30 million, and the Premier League has this evening terminated the contract, putting the coverage of the 46 matches up for action.

This will leave 1.2 million customers without Premier League matches next season, and Setanta’s unlikely to survive that…

For the latest, see our Setanta Sports Situation page.

Plans are afoot to switch off the national FM services in the UK, as well as some local radio services, by 2015, forcing the UK towards DAB digital radio.

In the Digital Britain report published yesterday, plans for a shift to DAB, the end of stations on Medium Wave, plus the transition of national stations to DAB are laid out. The FM space vacated by the big boys will be freed up for a network of ultra-local and community stations.

The report also highlights the target of getting digital radio listening up to 50% by 2013, and a target of DAB-only car radios in new cars by 2013.

Ambitious targets for a Digital Britain…

More on this story on our FM Radio page

As reported before, when Freeview HD starts next year, there will be four slots. Ofcom has this month announced the fourth channel. It’s gone to Five.

Five will be offering some of their peak time content in HD, with an HD-on-demand service overnight, and Five HD is expected to launch by the end on 2010.

The other three slots have been taken by BBC, ITV and channel 4. For full details on watching HD over Freeview, see our Freeview HD section.

The FrequencyCast podcast team has just released an emergency podcast update covering the week’s news stories: Setanta Sports close to collapse, changes to DAB, the new iPhone 3GS, iPhone OS 3.0, Sky on the X-Box, a top BT offer and the rise of the Pirates….

You can get to the update at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html , or if you have iTunes, get the show and sign up for more shows at: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=142899029

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A warning to Setanta subscribers – we’re hearing more worrying reports about the struggling sports service.

The Daily Mail is running with the story Setanta on the brink of collapse with the Times going with Time running out for Setanta rescue.

A statement issues by Setanta Sports today (10th June) says: "The company has not gone into administration.All our channels are still broadcasting across all platforms and our subscribers can continue to enjoy our programming. However, in the current circumstances, we have decided to suspend temporarily the acceptance of new subscriptions."

Setanta needs to pay £30m to the Premier League by the end of the week as part of its contract, but appears to have been unsuccessful in its bid to raise the money. The company’s survival is hanging in the balance with many thinking that collapse is days away. It’s not clear how this would affect Setanta’s 1.2 million UK subscribers.

With Setanta and paying by credit or debit card? Be careful. See the payment advice at MoneySavingExpert: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/protect/2009/06/setanta-crisis-how-to-protect-your-

Latest 19 June 09: Premier League rights revoked. See: Setanta Sports Situation

Struggling ITV may move ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 from Freeview to subscription services Sky and Virgin. More

ITV is in talks with Sky over moving their digital channels ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 from the Freeview platform over to Sky’s pay platform.

ITV’s in a bad way at the moment – it’s suffering heavily from the decline in ad revenue, and has had to lay off a number of staff, sell off assets and look to reduce their locally-produced news content. The move to a subscription service would be a way of generating some much needed revenue, as Sky would give ITV a cut of the subscription fee they charge their users.

Around 17 million households reportedly now have Freeview, compared to Sky’s 9 million subscribers.

A new national DAB station took to the air yesterday – Amazing Radio.

This new station will apparently be running for a six month trial period, playing new music from a variety of genres.

Amazing Radio, is now on Digital One’s multiplex, alongside other national commercial stations Classic FM, Planet Rock, Talk Sport and Absolute Radio (formerly Virgin Radio).

Amazing’s appearance on the national network has had one casualty… that lovely loop of bird song that filled the void left by Oneword’s departure in 2008.

Many are hoping that the birdsong will return – it’s available online, and soon as a CD, apparently…

Our podcast team has just released another TV and Tech show. FrequencyCast Show 40 is now available, covering the following:

• An update on Freeview HD – could there be trouble ahead?
• BBC coming to Top Up TV, plus changes to the UK chart show
• A look at what’s new with wi-fi, and how to get a better signal
• Interesting news of a sixth book for Hitch-hiker’s Guide fans
• Plus we discuss BT Vision, Virgin HD and some Top Up TV anger in our Interaction section

Download Show 40 direct to your MP3 player, or listen online at www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html

Got an iPod or iPhone? Get new shows and updates first by signing up via http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=142899029

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