[interestednovice]

I really feel Freeview has stagnated and, especially due to ongoing uncertainty around the long term future of the frequencies needed to operate it, the next leap is now likely to come when they finally get an IP-delivered version up and running. Really, they ought to have done this already. The golden opportunity was probably when they introduced “Freeview Play” as a brand in place of “Freeview+HD”. As the next version “beyond” Freeview+HD, Freeview Play could and should have required IP Fallback support, 4K UHD support and integrated on-demand players.

Unfortunately, they didn’t do that at the time. Over 50% of U.K. households now have access to at least 1 FTTP provider; most of the rest have FTTC at least. Internet speed is not a problem for the majority any more and, indeed, not being reliant on an aerial does have certain advantages. As it is, Freeview is stuck relying on increasingly-squeezed frequencies and meanwhile technologies such as 5G broadcast are not developed enough to be used for a second digital switchover. They therefore have little room to innovate other than switches to DVB-T2, but the appetite to invest isn’t there unless you can guarantee around 30 years of operation. COM7 and COM8 were also squandered as opportunities to get a T2 switchover going. It all goes back to a lack of planning, and you have to congratulate those involved in the original plan to make BBC B T2 otherwise we would probably have no HD channels at all now!

What they now should do, in my view, to make the best of a bad situation and avoid mobile operators totally eating their lunch, is to put forward a plan for a second switchover to T2 right now. How I imagine things could go is that you would have one mux still DVT-T, to carry all the main 5 PSB channels in full regional variants plus extra national channels like S4C and BBC Alba. The idea would be that you’d be no worse off than back when you had 5 analogue channels. For argument’s sake, let’s say that’s BBC A. BBC B then continues as-now as the regionalised mux in T2 with all main PSBs in HD. The third PSB mux is converted to T2 and would hold, preferably, major offshoot channels of the PSBs in HD. This would no longer need to be a regional mux, so costs could be kept down. The COM muxes would also convert to T2 and most likely hold a mix of HD and SD services.

The remaining SD mux could stay regionalised, since it’s already set up, but would be effectively a “nightlight” service. This is the total fallback, free to air, as all other platforms go HD only. The idea would be to encourage everyone to move over time in the vein of digital switchover. Longer term, this mux would also be converted to T2 and could be used as a mux to experiment with 4K over DTT. Since only one 4K channel is likely to fit in to a T2 mux, this could be a shared “events” type channel supported by the BBC. This would be effectively BBC HD over again, but BBC 4K this time.

Meanwhile, you make platform changes to serve the “HD first” viewer. All the messing about with Channel List Management now isn’t a good idea, as they didn’t implement CLM into the spec early enough so most HD devices don’t support it. Therefore, they should move all the SD PSBs to the 100s and make BBC One HD channel 1 on the EPG, and so on. The channels moving into the 100s is another nudge to SD viewers that they need to upgrade.

While all of that is happening, Freeview IP-Fallback needs to be launched under a snazzy brand as the “next generation of Freeview”. The default would then be internet-based, but devices would continue to accept aerial input. Over time, the ultimate goal would be to get Freeview ready for an “IP switchover” so that if/when transmitters are switched off for mobile networks, viewers could continue to watch Freeview but now through the internet.

IP-Freeview would be better in the sense that it would broadcast in HD by default, like Sky Glass, and allow 4K and even 8K in the future. It could also theoretically host more channels.