(18-12-2023, 06:17 PM)Stooky Bill Wrote: I'm not sure they'll be able to broadcast just captions for a while, don't the two platforms have rules about doing that? BBC3 had to have some programming on after it closed down.
Looks like there will be a caption for almost three months. www.bbc.co.uk
Quote:From 8th January, there will be a message displayed advising that the channel is closed. This message will be displayed on screen until 31st March 2024, after which the channel will no longer appear on the EPG.
"Dear Santa my SD box is old and crap can I please have a new one, yours sincerely, Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells"
Of course nothing would make a greater impact than "For viewers on BBC One HD, The King's Christmas Message. For our SD viewers, here's our own message."
(18-12-2023, 06:17 PM)Stooky Bill Wrote: I'm not sure they'll be able to broadcast just captions for a while, don't the two platforms have rules about doing that? BBC3 had to have some programming on after it closed down.
BBC3 did not actually close as a linear channel until April 2016. I think that however was fine to keep the channel number so the BBC did not lose the number.
Will be interesting to see what the BBC actually do on 8 January.
I imagine Freesat & Sky are viewing things a bit differently now compared to the BBC Three closure.
Remember:
1) BBC One is the first slot on both EPGs, it’s much more powerful to leave it up with a caption so SD viewers definitely see it, rather than remove it and just get a load of complaints that “I can’t see BBC One”.
2) EPG rules. The actual purpose of the rules is to dissuade/prevent “EPG squatting” from defunct services. The thing with this set of closures is that no EPG slots would actually be freed up if the channels were removed - since they are already used by equivalent HD services on HD boxes. Therefore, there is no realistic advantage to prompt removal.
3) It is in the wider interests of both platforms to discourage SD and facilitate efforts to migrate viewers away from it. If leaving the BBC channels up with a caption helps achieve this, then they are hardly going to take issue with the BBC.
My personal guess is that a generic BBC caption will broadcast across all the SD feeds, identically, from the closure date. This will represent the first time the caption appears on channels other than BBC One, so will air it to a much wider audience. It will probably be a full-screen, completely unavoidable caption.
We will then the feeds turned off and the channels quietly de-listed after the closure message period, and the BBC will be able to hand back the extra Nightlight transponder.