This month sees a few changes to the Top Up TV service, and we’re guessing a lot of customers aren’t going to be happy.
If you have Top Up TV, you’ll need to rescan your box to make sure you can continue to watch the service, but you’ll notice some reductions in the content and channels on offer.
Live TV Reduced
Many will remember that when Top Up TV launched back in 2004, it offered a service that would let you add 11 channels to your Freeview service – channels included E4, UKTV Gold, UKTV Style, UKTV Food, Discovery Channel, Discovery Home & Leisure, E4, Bloomberg News, Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Turner Classic Movies (TCM).
This was whittled down to just two, G.O.L.D and Home (formerly UKTV Style) in 2007.
This month, a further reduction:
- GOLD drops down to just three hours a day (11am to 2pm) – it’s not available at the weekend now
- Home drops to a stunning 1 hour a week (11am to noon on a Friday)
The reason for the reduction can be found on Freeview channel 44 – “Channel 5 + 1” has just launched, taking space away from Top Up TV’s subscription service.
Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2 and ESPN continue unaffected.
On-demand TV reduced
The other selling point with Top Up TV, was the “Anytime” service, now known as “TV Favourites”. This makes use of a set-top box that downloads extra TV shows overnight, when less channels are active. The shows can be watched the next day, played back from the hard-drive inside the Top Up Anytime+ box.
In November, we saw two more channels drop from the line-up, kids channels Boomerang & Cartoon Network. Other losses include BBC, SyFy channel, Paramount Comedy, Discovery, CBS and Living.
Price
Despite the significant reduction in content providers and live TV, the price for Top Up’s TV Favourites service remains at £12.99 a month – an extra £5 a month will get you Picture Box (28 movies a month). Sky Sports and ESPN is of course extra.
Alternatives?
If you’re not impressed with the recent changes to Top Up TV, you might want to take a look at what BT has to offer.
Their on-demand service offers a far larger catalogue of TV shows, there’s a solid selection of movies, and you can watch the catch-up services from BBC iPlayer, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.
You still get all of your Freeview channels, and can get Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2 and ESPN. If you already get your broadband from BT, it’ll be cheaper than Top Up TV’s favourites and film service too.
Full details on BT Vision can be found at btvision.bt.com, or in our BT Vision Review.
Any comments on the changes at Top Up TV? Please let us know below.
i’m surprised top up tv has lasted this long please shut down
and stop using freeview’s bandwidth as we need more free channels
get home & gold off freeview, top up is crap !!
as ex subscriber to top up looks like they winding this service down and concentrating on sports,with i player and internet and next year you view whats the point of paying 12.99 a month.
top up tv are using freeview’s bandwidth this stop’s new channels
from launching on freeview, so jog on top up tv and close down and
give freeview it’s bandwidth back
im suprised they’re still in business. there has to be a countdown timer somewhere counting down their days left in business