[rick]

I don't see a dedicated thread covering ITV specifically so I have started this one, but feel free to merge with any other relevant thread.

ITV have today announced that the following channels will be launching next month:

Border Scotland HD
Channel TV HD

The following channels will close in January 2024:

ITV 1 Wales SD
Channel TV SD
UTV SD
Border Scotland SD

[Keith]

It's worth noting that this change appears to be satellite only, with Freeview not affected.
www.itv.com 

Information for ITV satellite viewers with SD-only set-top boxes in Channel, Bor…
Here at ITV, we are making some major improvements to complete our upgrade to al…
  Source: www.itv.com

[Spencer]

Given the PSB3 multiplex is now regionalised to provide BBC One HD variations, I'm surprised ITV haven't introduced more HD regions on Freeview.

I appreciate there are a few areas, such as Border, where the ITV1 and BBC One regions don't match up, so a few extra versions of PSB3 would need to be created for full regionalisation. But just by providing the corresponding ITV region to each BBC region as it currently stands, they'd have the vast majority of the country with the right version of ITV1 HD, which surely would be better than broadcasting Central in Penzance or Granada in Berwick upon Tweed.

[Stooky Bill]

Given the PSB3 multiplex is now regionalised to provide BBC One HD variations, I'm surprised ITV haven't introduced more HD regions on Freeview.

I don't think there's anything technically to stop them doing so, just a case of them paying to do it. I suppose it's a case of how much the extra advertising on the regions that aren't in HD will bring in compared to how much it costs

[London Lite]

So this will still leave Freeview CI viewers with Channel SD while Sky/Freesat viewers finally getting the five PSBs in HD.

[London Lite]

The switch to HD on Border Scotland was mentioned on Lookaround.

[Orry Verducci]

I don't think there's anything technically to stop them doing so, just a case of them paying to do it. I suppose it's a case of how much the extra advertising on the regions that aren't in HD will bring in compared to how much it costs

I have a suspicion other factors might be at play.

Making all the regions available will, I assume, require additional circuits between ITV Presentation and the BBC Coding and Mux facilities (who are responsible for the PSB3 mux). ITV/Red Bee are planning to move playout from Chiswick to Red Bee's Broadcast Centre in White City, so it doesn't make sense at this time to put in new circuits to Chiswick. It also just happens that the Broadcast Centre, being home to BBC Presentation, already has connectivity to BBC C&M.

Based on that I wouldn't be surprised if the missing regions appear on Freeview when they move transmission of ITV1 over to White City. That's an educated guess however so there's no guarantee on that.

[AaronLancs]

ITV/Red Bee are planning to move playout from Chiswick to Red Bee's Broadcast Centre in White City

Thanks for this little tidbit of information Orry. I have a couple of questions arising from this. Sorry to be a pain in the neck and go slightly OT for a moment:

1) Considering this is Red Bee's Broadcast Centre in White City and what happened back in September 2021. What would become ITV's "Salford" in terms of DR (disaster recovery) backups?
and 2) Given that you've mentioned Chiswick. What about Leeds. Is that also in the long run going to transfer to White City or is this just about the southern playout system at the moment?

[Stooky Bill]

Thanks for this little tidbit of information Orry. I have a couple of questions arising from this. Sorry to be a pain in the neck and go slightly OT for a moment:

1) Considering this is Red Bee's Broadcast Centre in White City and what happened back in September 2021. What would become ITV's "Salford" in terms of DR (disaster recovery) backups?
and 2) Given that you've mentioned Chiswick. What about Leeds. Is that also in the long run going to transfer to White City or is this just about the southern playout system at the moment?

You've probably answered question 1 yourself there, ITV already has a second playout location in Leeds. If they're moving locations then they'll almost certainly get a similar setup to BBC and Ch4 which are also two-site resilient. 

The question is more what Channel 5 will do. When the Red Bee incident happened their playout moved to their backup location which was Red Bee Chiswick.... they were in the area next door to ITV!

[ASnep]

The question is more what Channel 5 will do. When the Red Bee incident happened their playout moved to their backup location which was Red Bee Chiswick.... they were in the area next door to ITV!

As they are part of Paramount now, wouldn't be surprised if they try to go wherever they got their playout.