Germany's RTL pulls free-to-air channels off terrestrial TV

Re: This is very shortsighted

"WiFi is the future of broadband portable, not mobile spectrum."

When even city centre properties are still throttled to 2002 speeds by ancient copper wires, it makes you wonder.

Re: This is very shortsighted

The main German channels are FtA on satellite and included in basic packages on cable that are often included with rent. Many TV's can receive cable (DVB-C) and satellite (DVB-S2) without needing a set top box. The satellite service is really quite FtA although a (fairly cheap) pay platform was being started for HD a couple of years ago I haven't followed it's progress. It was planned that there would be Conditional Access Modules which can be inserted into European TVs to provide these services without the cost of a set top box.

Re: what i'd like to know is

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see why that directive is relevant?

Re: what i'd like to know is

The Directive establishes the principle that Member States must ensure freedom of reception and that they may not restrict retransmission on their territory of television programmes from other Member States.

The weasel word in there is "restrict". Nobody's "restricting" retransmission, but then almost nobody's bothering to do it, more's the pity.

Anyhow, as regards those satellites. Do you mean 2D and 2E rather than 4D and 4E? Looking at the footprint maps, the spot beam on the new 2E bird looks much the same as that on 2D, which is obtainable most places in Europe with an appropriately[1] sized dish.

[1] YMMV. Some people do not regard having a 2.1m dish in the back garden as "appropriate"......

Re: what i'd like to know is

Nothing to "get away with". The Télévision sans Frontières" directive forbids member states from preventing citizens from watching any foreign TV that they happen to pick up, i.e. by jamming or banning aerials/dishes. Contrary to popular belief there is nothing in it which requires broadcasters to make their transmissions available even over the whole of their national territory, never mind beyond it.

Re: what i'd like to know is

That clause says that the states (governments) can't stop people broadcasting content from other countries (e.g. jamming or banning ownership of suitable receivers). It does not prevent any commercial organisation cannot decide to target particular territories or that content producers must grant broadcasters full European rights if they grant any rights.

Especially since they started trying to get you to sign up with an account so they can charge you for their back catalogue, interlinking the "catchup" and this catalogue so you can't find anything you might want to watch (there are filters, yes, but they didn't work last time I tried). Instead you get drowned in old, unremarkable shows that they are attempting to "monetize".

Perhaps it is a sign of the times for commercial TV - with a bit of luck X-IceFactor-Out-Of-Here will be removed from our view

plenty of bush

But fortunately no Gorbachev.

buy a decent tv, and put a 32gb + mem stick in the USB, and you can record tv programs, by pressing the record button on the remote or scheduling

The evidence is to the contrary

The number of hours people watched "linear TV" was higher in 2011 (latest year for which I can find figures) than ever.

There are an awful lot of people who don't have catch-up/on-demand TV (or even adequate Internet connections) - plenty of older people can't even use an EPG and still rely on the Radio Times to guide their viewing.

And it would be wrong to assume that a lot of TV viewing is elective - much of it is little more than looking at scenery out of the train window.

Linear TV isn't going away any time soon - and if it did, it would pretty much be the end of new programming: people would stick to the archive stuff with recognisable titles. Even broadcast TV isn't going anywhere until cable is more than a metropolitan phenomenon (which, notably, it is in Germany).

Gone are the days where we revolve around the TV schedule. My ex-father-in-law talks about the days when Hancock was on TV and all the pubs would empty to go and watch it. Those days are pretty much gone.

This is often claimed but as has already been noted it is not backed up by real evidence. It always strikes me as new toy syndrome: this is a relatively new development, but I'm watching more TV this way that I did when it didn't exist or was less convenient, so if follows that some day all my TV viewing will be done this way. It ignores the way people actually watch their televisions.

When people think about the TV programmes they watch they invariably think of the so-called "appointment television" shows - the kind of thing people will go out of their way to watch and keep their diary free to watch. It tends to be a relatively small proportion of people's real viewing. Some of that can be timeshifted, some can't. The rest of the schedule is not things that people actually want to watch but watch because they are on. Those are not going to be timeshifted.

Look at today's prime time schedule for the main British TV channels. Who is going to make a special effort to specifically watch Heir Hunters or Jaguars Born Free on BBC2? Inside Out on BBC1? Cornwall with Caroline Quentin on ITV1? Wild Things on 4? These will all get tens or hundreds of thousands of viewers simply because they happen to be on. In twelves months time few will remember even having watched them.

There's the soaps - Emmerdale, Eastenders and a double dose of Corrie - that people will make an effort to see. Those could be timeshifted but only to a limited extent - people will want to have seen those by tomorrow for those round-the-water-cooler discussions. Similarly, Miranda, Mrs Brown's Boys or Celebrity Big Brother all have loyal followings but again people don't want to miss out on those discussions at work the following day. Then you have the stuff that follows a very definite natural schedule. Do you want to watch a random match from last year's FA cup third round? Or even the lunchtime news at 7pm?

In short, the schedule isn't going anywhere. Just because everything may be available on catch-up doesn't mean that people actually want to watch it.

I'll be glad when I don't see TV listings published in papers.

I expect the papers might be gone first...

"And after DVB-T, DVB-S (satellite) is the next candidate for removal anyway. The one-way nature is on its way out. "

One-way makes a lot of sense for scheduled stuff and things that a lot of people want to watch at once (like live events). Even Negroponte made that point 20 years ago (If you read "Being Digital", you should also ready Clifford Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil")

Multicast would fill some of the holes. but not enough of them - and ISP support for Mbone has been effectively non-existant for years anyway.

@Lee Dowling

There is a saying about the bandwidth of a station wagon of tapes and I have a similar one for broadcast. "Don't underestimate the delivered bandwidth of 5 million homes all receiving the same broadcast signal." At 5Mbps that would be 25Tbps sustained.

Now those numbers only happen at mass live events - Olympics 100m, World Cup Finals etc. but for anything that gets 1 million viewers (live or recording) is very efficiently served by broadcast. Over time it would make sense to have less but higher quality channels broadcast and using the internet for more niche content (all the crap on Freeview) but broadcast still has life in it for a good while.

And as others say *most* people don't actually use/want on demand. They like having things just there to choose from and not too much choice either. You and I like our On Demand content but to an extent I can sympathize with the majority having spent 30 minutes picking what to watch on Netflix on occasions. You may be right about the next generation, my son barely understands the concept of TV channels and schedules as we just keep a stockpile of things recorded and use Netflix/Lovefilm so it will be interesting but I am not yet convinced that model will die.

Re: Small problem with satellite

I had heard that Sky had the exclusive satellite broadcast rights to UKTV's channels, although the truth is it's probably a bit of both stopping the channels appearing on Freesat. A shame.

Re: Small problem with satellite

Freesat points at the same satellites as Sky. But some of the satellites have a tighter footprint around the British Isles. It may be that Dave or other channels are just waiting for a slot to free up. Astra is launching more satellites to increase HD capacity but channels still have to wait their turn. Or maybe they're comfortable to be in the Sky package.

Anyway I think Freesat is pretty decent and getting better. Biggest issue is some of the Freesat boxes still have pretty ropey user interfaces.

Re: Small problem with satellite

Freeview is available over much of Ireland as well. I'd heard that unavailablity of some Freeview channels on Freesat was more a matter of thrashing out commercial disputes than directly about licensing and overspill.

Irish TV on satellite has chosen to address the issue of licensed material by adopting Ka-band transmissions rather than K-band, because the higher frequencies can be focussed into a tighter beam, covering Ireland only.

Unfortunately, this means buying a new (less-common, therefore expensive) LNB and installing a new cable for it.

(I'm in Northern Ireland. I can receive Irish DVB-T both on the local Freeview broadcast and directly from across the border. I get RTL from satellite!)

Re: It's not over until the fat lady sings

I agree Charlie, thats why i like Freesat.

Sadly there appears to be a few BBC or ITV employees on this forum that want to down vote the facts.

Fact is, Astra 2e will be deliberately tightly focused on the UK, much tighter than 2d is now, under the ploy that it will provide a stronger signal to the north of the UK.

It seems likely that in Bavaria, a dish size of 2.5 metres or more will be required where as 1.5 metres is enough at the minute.

1.5 metres is "reasonable" in my opinion.

There is more to this than meets the eye.

Re: Satellite or Cable?

"Satellite is precarious."

Is it really any more precarious than terrestrial TV?