Author: Scott

BBC Premier League Record, Success for Hamilton on Disney+

Attracting a peak audience of 5.7 million, the BBC has set the record for the most viewed Premier League game with their broadcast of Southampton vs Manchester City. The previous record was set by the Manchester United and Manchester City derby game in 2012, which was viewed by 4 million.

Although not normally a rights holder for live premier league games, the BBC is showing 4 games live due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, Disney’s switch of the release of the musical Hamilton to its Disney Plus platform appears to have been successful, with data from Apptopia showing the app had been downloaded 513,323 times over the July the 4th weekend. The recording of the Broadway musical was scheduled for cinematic release.

Additionally, there have been 71.5 million worldwide downloads of the Disney Plus app since launch. This figure excludes India or Japan, where the service has been integrated into existing apps.

Illegal Streaming Arrest

Suffolk Constabulary have made an arrest in connection with the suspected illegal streaming of premium television channels, along with other copyrighted material.

The illegal streaming facilitated access to ten of thousands of people. During the arrest, officers were able to take control of the platform, disable the illegal streams, and display a warning message to users.

The arrested person has now been released, pending further enquiries.

Misconceptions Regarding this Website

Several false accusations have been made on social media regarding the All About Digital TV website, that I now feel the need to put straight.

Firstly, the table format for station lists does not impact on visitor number information. The entire table is contained within the one page, with the website software WordPress paginating the table to make it easier to read and reduce scrolling. This has no bearing on page hit data as, only the hits to the web page address are recorded.

Regardless, I have no interest in page hit data. The only website visitor data that I have an interest in is the number of unique visitors. This is the number of individual IP addresses that have visited the website. The actual number of visitors may even be higher, if more than one person has used the same device to view this website.

At no point have I spammed any other twitter accounts or Facebook pages with links to this website, in order to promote the website. I have, on occasion, posted links to the website, where I believe the information on this website may be of benefit. These are to specific, relevant pages (ie not the homepage), and have done this around an estimated 10 to 20 times, and have done this for a number of weeks.

I have promoted this website as a replacement to the now closed a516digital website, and have tried to emulate the mixed digital TV and digital radio format that a516digital followed. However, to be clear, I have no links with the creator of a516digital. I have NOT been given permission to use content from a516digital, nor have I done so, instead developing my own format and content.

Hopefully, this post will offer enough clarification, but should you wish to discuss matters further, please email me on [email protected]. If you wish to make a complaint, please also email me on this address. I always like to resolve disputes through discussion, and will only block people as a matter of last resort.

Eleven Sports UK Launch Was A Mistake

Andrea Radrizzani, the CEO of Eleven Sports, has admitted that it was a mistake to launch in the UK without a distribution deal with a pay TV operator.

The service launched in the UK back in 2018, as a premium online streaming platform, with major sports such as La Liga and Serie A. An initial deal with La Liga for the 2018/19 season was abandoned in December, after the service failed to gain enough subscribers.

The failure to secure linear TV deals, failure to make a market impact, and poor overall performance led to the service closing in the UK less than a year after launch.

Radrizzani said he

was convinced that the right commercial strategy and a good proposition for BT and Sky would have provided to all platforms all the content – and cheaper for them – to enable customers to get the main international football.

adding that in reality it was impossible due to the tight grip that BT and Sky have on the market.

However, although not successful in the UK and Singapore, Eleven Sports has made progress in smaller European markets Belgium, Poland, and Portugal.

Virgin Media Reveals Leap in TV Viewing

Cable TV operator Virgin Media has revealed how the Covid-19 lockdown has changed viewing habits in the UK.

Amongst the statistics revealed are a 10% increase in customers watching TV, compared to pre-lockdown, with customers watching TV for an average of 41 extra minutes per day.

28th March, a Saturday, was the busiest data for customers tuning into TV channels, with 17% growth, compared to the eight previous Saturdays. For apps, this figure was an even higher 42%.

News, music, and radio channels all saw an increase in demand. Each customer spent an extra 25 minutes watching the news, on average. With schools closed, children’s channels also saw increases in demand.

Cuts to Regional BBC Services

The BBC are cutting some regional TV shows, in order to cut costs. 450 job losses are expect, with the axing of inside out the most prominent move.

Regionally news bulletins on the Breakfast programme (BBC One) will return, although a date for this has not been announced. All 6.30pm news bulletins will have a single presenter going forward. The regional politics programmes will be reinstated, but with a new format to reach a wider audience.

Inside Out, which has 11 regional variations will be replaced with a new investigation programme, from 6 larger regions. The unnamed programme will focus on single investigation per programme, rather than three 10 minute long segments.

Perhaps the biggest changes are at the local radio stations in England, which will retain the standard blocks of 4 hour long programmes introduced initially as a temporary measure back in March. Local programmes will be retained between 6am and 10pm, with a new national late show planned for 10pm to 1am. All shows will have 1 presenter only.

Some of the cuts are necessary due to the delays in reintroducing TV license charges for the over 75s, and the cost of covering the licenses for those on Pension Credit.

Freesports Leaves Freesat

Freesport left the Freesat satellite platform without warning on 30th June, after failing to agree terms with Freesat. This means the channel is no longer available on the Freesat EPG.

The channel is available free-to-air on satellite, and can still be manually tuned. The manual tuning parameters are:

Satellite Astra 28.2
Frequency 11426
Polarisation Vertical
Symbol Rate 29500
FEC 8/9
Service ID 52575

The channel remains available on Sky in HD and Freeview in standard definition (limited coverage).

Review: Talk Radio Goes DAB+, is this of any benefit?

You may be aware that Talk Radio and Talk Sport 2 have both converted to DAB+. DAB+ is a newer form of DAB, which uses the more efficient AAC codec. This allows for a more efficient use of the bandwidth available, allowing more radio stations to broadcast on a single frequency.

Both stations switched from 64 kbps normal DAB (mono LSF) to 32 kbps DAB+ stereo, allowing Times Radio to launch in the 64 kbps of space made available. Talk Radio ran dual transmissions on DAB and DAB+ for a time, to assist listeners with the switch, and this gave the opportunity to compare DAB against DAB+.

The switch to DAB+ does not appear to have reduced sound quality, although perhaps there is a slight reduction in clarity. What seems a little pointless are Talk Radio and Talk Sport 2’s stereo configuration, as both are near 100% speech based stations.

Perhaps, keeping DAB+ but reverting to mono may remove the slight clarity issue.This is in stark contrast with rival speech station LBC News, which although currently uses 24 kbps DAB+ (mono), did at launch use the same DAB+ configuration as Talk Radio and suffered badly from bubbling noises and was (and still is) extremely difficult to listen to. There is a possibility that radio stations encoding equipment can affect DAB+ sound quality.

On the whole, the Talk Radio and Talk Sport 2 switch to DAB+ has enabled an additional station to launch, without sacrificing audio quality, and can only be beneficial for listeners. However, it was worth considering those who do not have a DAB+ compatible radio, who will need to replace this to continue to access Talk Radio and Talk Sport 2. Perhaps, with the launch of Times Radio using normal DAB, this could be described as a one step forward, two steps back scenario for some.

Two radios have been used to test Talk Radio on DAB and DAB+, a Sony portable mains unit, and a Roberts pocket DAB radio. Both gave similar results.

Freeview COM8 is Switched Off

The Freeview COM7 and COM8 multiplex reshuffle has now been completed, with the COM8 multiplex now switched off. Both multiplexes were temporary multiplexes, to provide additional Freeview capacity between the digital switchover and launch of 5G services.

As a result of the COM8 closure, some +1 and HD services have left Freeview, although the normal versions of the channels continue. COM7 continues for the time being, accommodating services such as Forces TV and Freesports, along with Quest HD and additional BBC HD services.

CCXTV and Hochanda Frequency Moves

CCXTV (channel 23) has moved frequencies on Freeview, from the COM5 multiplex to COM4. Hochanda (channel 85) has made the opposite move. A re-tune may be required to re-instate the channels, with the old version temporarily available on channel numbers 784 and 785.

Hochanda is also extending its broadcast hours from 7am to 7pm, to 7am to 10pm. As the channel time shares, the frequency move is likely to be required in order to facilitate the broadcast hours extension.

Additionally, I understand that Yesterday +1 is likely to be extending its broadcast hours to full time, but this is unconfirmed.