So Much For FREEview

A few weeks ago Sky announced plans to remove Sky 3, Sky News & Sky Sports News from the Freeview platform. They said that the channels would be replaced by a premium subscription service meaning Digital Terrestrial users would be able to view prime content from Sky Movies, Sky One & Premiership Football for a fee. To take advantage of this service Freeview box owners would also have to scrap their existing box for a new one capable of decoding the encrypted channels.

While I acknowledge that ‘Freeview’ is actually only part of the DTT service I feel strongly that Ofcom should prevent this happening. I’ve never wanted Sky. I already pay a licence fee, I don’t want to pay additional money for my TV which is why I love Freeview so much.

“So what’s the big deal smeg?” I hear you cry, “Just don’t subscribe.” Of course that’s the simple solution and of course I won’t be upgrading my box or subscribing. It’s what it stands for I don’t like. I don’t use Sky News or Sky Sports News in the first place, but I like that they’re there. If Sky go ahead with this Freeview users will lose 3 channels. If I wanted a Sky service I would subscribe to Sky, why should they remove 3 channels of Freeview?

Also think of the older viewers that are already confused enough by the digital switchover. This is just going to add another layer of fuss to the change for analogue to digital.

There is a petition to stop this on the Number 10 website but given the government's reaction to the road tax petition I doubt it’ll make any difference.

P.S. My 300th post!