Britain’s Broadcasters Prep New Free Live TV Service via Broadband
The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have today announced what seems to be an “evolution” of the existing Freeview (inc. Freeview Play) IPTV platform. Called ‘Freely’, the new platform will be a free TV service that delivers live TV over your UK home broadband ISP connection (probably mobile too).
The idea of delivering live TV over a broadband connection is of course nothing new and various set-top-boxes, as well as other platforms, can already do something similar. But the current Freeview platform is a bit more centred around on-demand content, while Freely viewers will be able to easily browse and watch live TV channels together with on-demand content streamed straight to their smart TV via the internet.
The development of this new platform is necessary because the old age of broadcasting TV via the airwaves is going to slowly come to an end as gigabit-capable broadband achieves near universal coverage, which is likely to be achieved by around the end of 2030 (Project Gigabit target). Not that you strictly need gigabit speeds for such a task – most HD video streams will work in 3-6Mbps and about 99% of the country can already access that.
Set for launch sometime in 2024, Freely will be built-in to the next generation of smart TVs and feature a line-up of public service broadcaster content and other free-to-air channels. It will aim to “replicate the terrestrial TV experience, building on the heritage and popularity of the Freeview TV platform, currently used in 16m homes.”
The announcement notes that 15% (around 4 million) of UK TV homes are already considered to be IP-only (broadband-only).
Jonathan Thompson, CEO of Everyone TV, said:
“We are delighted to be working with the public service broadcasters on the next phase of free TV’s evolution. This new development is a reflection of the fact that a growing number of UK viewers are watching content online, but still want easy access to the shared experience of live TV.
Our aim is to ensure that all viewers have access to a free, aggregated live TV experience that champions British content and is delivered in a way that suits audience needs and preferences. Every one of us should be able to share in the best of British ideas and creativity on TV.”
At this stage there isn’t much technical detail available about the service, such as in terms of what video and audio codecs / standards it will use, whether channels will all now be broadcast in HD, 4K (UltraHD) or HDR and what sort of connection speeds end-users will require. But we hope to learn more about that in the not-too-distant future.
The broadcasters’ IP channels are also available via dedicated linear TV subscription services, such as Sky Stream and Virgin Stream, as well as within broadcasters’ VoD apps such as BBC iPlayer and ITVX.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Finally the first nail in the coffin of OTA TV and the dreaded TV licence.
What does any of this have to do with a TV licence?
This has literally nothing to do with the abolition of the TV licence. It’s moving Freeview from OTA to IP, nothing more. Doesn’t automatically mean we all stop paying the TV licence any more than moving from a dish to IP for Sky means it’s free.
The excuse given by everyone why the TV licence cannot be abolished is there is no suitable alternative method to offer OTA TV. With this new service they can easily scramble it and offer a subscription model to get those interested in paying for it.
you still HAVE to pay for your broadband provider , if you do not have or want broadband you are stuffed
I agree with others, in that it have nothing to do with the TV licence, the BEEB will still want their payment and will still send their bully boys around to try and force it out of people and their intimating letters.
Even so, I think the licence is on borrowed time, once the BEEb becomes available online it will be easier to make it a subscription.
I still think it will be a fair few years as there is still a lot of people who don’t have internet capable of streaming high quality and there are also people who may not want broadband in their home and want to pay so much extra per month just to watch their TV.
Will this Freely work as Freeview does now, with just pressing a button to get to the channels or will people have to muck around with some guide, also will it need an account to access, because almost everything these days need to know who you are, what colour underwear you wear before you can use the service. Well done to Pluto for not asking for any info.
come up, Freeview is a right mess, if they can’t get that right, how are they going to get an online service right?
Don’t really bother me as I don’t watch normal TV and I don’t have a TV licence, even the catch up services like ITVX I don’t bother with
‘With this new service they can easily scramble it and offer a subscription model to get those interested in paying for it.’
You know there are scrambled premium channels broadcast OTA, right? This changes nothing.
Nothing to do with the TV licence and in any case if the terrestrial channels end up streamed in real time a licence will still be needed
In the medial term terrestrial TV delivered by transmitters is likely to go . It make no sense keeping two networks going. The bandwidth freed up van then be pit to other uses such as improving mobile coverage etc
What does any of this have to do with a TV licence?
This has a lot to do with the tv license.
The excuse given by the bbc why the tv licence musn’t be ended is that people will watch bbc channels without paying. The bbc says they can’t encrypt freeview because many tv’s don’t have a card reader slot that could be used for a subscription card like sky tv’s card.
This iptv service can easily encrypt the bbc channels therefore the bbc channels can be encrypted and the tv licence can be paid to be able to view bbc channels.
This would allow people who don’t watch bbc channels e.g people who just watch sky sports, sky atlantic, channel4 etc those people can watch without paying for a tv license. They might have to pay for a radio license though as radio isn’t encrypted.
The bbc will of course oppose encrypting the channels on freely because they know many people don’t watch bbc channels but they still want their tv license fee.
Wahoo, no more TV license! which was a load of ballocks anyway
I know, right? Remember when the licence disappeared when we moved from analogue to Freeview?
Oh.
A TV license is required if you watch an online stream of a broadcast.
The TV license is not going away with this.
They have an opportunity here to write the specs from scratch for a low-latency service that is responsive so you can do things like flick through channels and have them load up as quickly as DTT does at the moment – this should be achievable with modern computing power and fibre connections. If the finished product instead is like watching live TV on the ITV website where loading a channel comes with two minutes of pre-roll advertising then it will deservedly be DOA.
You know that is not going to happen, I don’t think they have any idea how to
They know exactly how to:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2022-11-low-latency-live-streaming
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/articles/2023/bbc-iplayer-update-programme-availability-live-video
@Jonny, it would have to be improved, because the last time I used iplayer, it was to be honest a mess. but then we are not talking about just the BBC here, this is a company where ITV and others are involved.
Well that’s my point. They know what needs to be done but there’s a difference between what can be delivered to browsers and what they can do with a 7 year old smart TV. Having the freedom to start again when it comes to certifying devices for this means being able to leave behind limitations of existing TV hardware and operating system platforms.
a lot of TV sets even modern ones are pretty limited, not much memory, slow processors, so there is a limit on them as well. I have a hisense Roku, in theory being Roku new apps can be added, but I doubt this freely even if it became available on roku would be as seamless as watching TV off line. Freeview play sounded a good thing, just like you View, but it is not good at all, you go backwards in the guide and get dumped into different apps depending on the broadcaster, and then it only works with SD channels and not all.
The article is about Freely, not license fee or subscription fee. The nut jobs with their own agenda out in force I see, trying to peddle on any subject they think they can get in on….
People have the ability to see the reasoning why something is being done. For example whenever I used to be with Sky and there was an announcement saying “we are offering 10 new channels as part of our standard subscription package”. I would always groan and say to myself, that means the standard subscription price is soon going to go up. And every time it did. This is because I have the ability to see what is really being said.
This is great news for anyone in a new build, and who don’t want to be tied to an ISP for their TV service. Long awaited change is good to see.
Can’t you get an aerial installed in a new build?
Who is tied to an ISP for their TV service? I know Sky want people to take their broadband if they have tier TV service, but people don’t have to. I know people with sky and have different broadband providers. 2 households now, used to be 4, but the others haver seen sense and told sky to stick their overpriced TV service where the sun don’t shine.
If you are into your TV, would you really want to rely on your broadband just to get your coronation street, if that is still available? I stream a lot, I also do have my Blueray, if my broadband went down I could watch blueray or read a book. But some people get upset if they can’t watch their coronation street at the time it is broadcast.
Myself, I think the whole liner system is out of date, waiting for a specific time to watch something. I can understand with sport, but anything else can be watched when you like, it is the future.
But the problem is, not everyone want to pay for broadband and not everyone can get decent broadband.
I had a card posted tome from BT, today, on the top it says, Big thrills, small bills.
LOL, this is Bt, no bill is small with BT, they saying I can get 159Mb.s for £30.99 a month and for an extra £12 a month I can get netflix and now TV. I don;lt think I will bother, since I have 500Mb.s broadband for £24 a month and i can opt in and out of Netflix and any other streaming service when I want. I bet Bloated toad has a 24 month contract on that as well.
Who, out of BT and your Altnet, do think is most likely to be solvent in 5 years time?
Doesn’t really matter. If you can get the cheap ride for 5 years, then have to switch to something else after that, then why not?
@Fender, Even if the Alt net goes under, another provider will buy them up, the majority of the networks is laid, and they are expanding in different parts of the country. I would not go back to BT certainly not at their prices. but I still want to know what TV is tied with what provider? I presume the only one would be Virgin as you can’t really get Virgin TV service without their broadband. But then a fair few people can’t get Virgin even if they wanted to.
Sky TV can be got without broadband still, but they don’t allow people to have just the sky package without Netflix, which is stupid, they add stuff on to up the price that you can’t get out of. But then Sky is a total and complete waste of money and overpriced.
According to the Everyone TV website, they are Championing free TV for all, which means they can’t really close the terrestrial service down.
Just out of interest, do you know about free IPTV services that people run on GitHub? You literally just paste a link into an app (maybe two at times), and it just works.
@mike
A lot of new build estates don’t allow you to install a roof top aerial. If you’re in a good signal area you can often get away with installing one in the loft. The bigger problem with new build is that you are tied to the altnet owned by or nominated by the developer (eg Persimmon). As the roads on the estates are no longer adopted by the local authority they are left in the hand of developer who can prevent the likes of Openreach installing their network.
i love it when they call it ‘free’ when it commands that you pay a tv license for watching live broadcasts.
In fairness “no additional charge beyond what you already have to pay to watch live tv ly” doesn’t have the same ring to it…
>i love it when they call it ‘free’ when it commands that you pay a tv >license for watching live broadcasts.
People must wake up one day and start deliver ‘free’ slaps to any TVL-involved fat cat.
More of the same crap then.
If the BBC have any common-sense they’d make this x266 from the get-go and thus you could send an 8K stream with only 5mb/s broadband connection in your home. But knowing the BBC this will be x264 and thus buffering complaints by everyone in rural areas.
It won’t be X266. The chips are too expensive for mass market appeal. 8k is irrelevant, no one is really broadcasting 4k, let alone 8k. This needs to go into everything from budget to flagship TVs so H256 will be the way to go.
It’ll be HEVC & DD+. HD as standard, with no UHD channels. Some channels will still be SD.
It’s free. It won’t do more than what Sky Stream/Virgin Stream are doing. They aren’t doing X266, Sky’s 4KHDR streams need 35Mbps.
By the time this service fully replaces OTA (2034), everyone will be able to get at least 35Mbps and encoding will have improved so that figure will be nearer 20Mbps. Look at iPlayer live UHD as an example. It started out requiring 38Mpbs and will now work at 24Mbps.
Why not AV1?
HEVC has been around longer and has more hardware decoding support, which is exactly what you need in a STB or Smart TV.
They could go with AV1 but I doubt it. The BBC already uses HEVC for UHD so I’d expect that to be pushed.
Will it support Multicast as the delay on streaming is appalling.
“It will aim to “replicate the terrestrial TV experience, building on the heritage and popularity of the Freeview TV platform, currently used in 16m homes.”
I’m curious whether the API will allow for things like DVRs (both software and hardware) or if the concept will effectively be killed off.
That is the thing, while there are a lot of stuff on catch up TV, not all channels have catch up TV and not all channels that do show everything on catch up TV. One of my brothers still use a PVR. I have tried to get him to watch stuff online, but he won’t, he prefers to use his TV and PVR. If I ever went back to watching normal broadcast TV, I would get my old PVR back out and start using it.
the other about PVR;s is that you can bypass adverts, I use to pause content for about 10 minutes, go and make a coffee and then I could just bypass the adverts. You will not be able to do that with online freely.
Catchup needs to up its game with picture quality and 5.1.
Less people would be shackled to their DVRs if you could get 1080 & 5.1. No one offers 5.1 yet and Channel 4 and 5 can’t even do 1080.
Yeah, at the moment there are literally 0 Freeview / Freesat recorders that allow you to rip the recorded content off of them.
* “Yeah, at the moment there are literally 0 Freeview / Freesat recorders that allow you to rip the recorded content off of them.” *
I hope this is ironic / sarcastic? Humax Fox-T (lots available on ebay) with custom firmaware does this perfectly – or for a DIY solution any number of USB DVB-T dongles or the RPi DVB Hat with a Pi running TVHeadend is even better. I suspect that the ease of recording un-encrypted off FTA DVB may be part of the motivation for this, as well as freeing up all of the UHF channels for yet more Treasury moolah. Only a matter of time before iPlayer DASH streaming goes encrypted and blocks get_iplayer etc.
The really annoying thing is that the early 2000’s BBC attempts to get carrier-grade Multicast working properly came to nothing – Unicast live video distribution is an appalling waste of backhaul / head-end capacity with the existing DVB-T & DVB-S delivery networks a far more efficient solution.
@James Alford-Allan
People may still have old capable hardware which is capable of this, if I wanted I could setup a PS3 and PlayTV.
There’s also other options such as PCs, I myself have a Plex server and HDHomerun.
It’s also not a feature everyone may care for, such as my parents. They use streaming but still find convenience to the old DVR e.g. skip adverts, not worry about expiry dates, pause live TV, etc.
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@Ad47uk. Most PVR does have the advantage that you can keep the recording for more or less forever; DRM to prevent access to an already recorded programme generally was not implemented. Some PVRs also allow recording of radio that was broadcast over freeview/freesat, and again that isn’t always available as catchup, or maybe not for long. Some PVR setups even make it possible to “archive” programmes on DVD at least in SD (unsure if Blueray would be possible for HD), or to “unload” the recording in e.g. mpeg or similar.
So that’s a significant plus for PVR grabbing OTA content over freeview/freesat and similar. Also some content isn’t ever offered as catch-up anyway.
I agree PVR (and other similar media recording/storage) is increasingly niche in these days of catchup and other streaming options
I have a digital stream, it was a good machine in it’s day and I did give it a try a couple of months ago and it worked, just pushed the aerial cables in the socket as I don’t have an plug on the co-ax. If I ever went back to watching TV I would bring it out and use it as it does the job. I have also got a DVD recording, but it only has an analogue tuner, so I would have to use the scart. I can’t remember what make that is as it is buried on a large shelf.
Very little worth keeping these days as almost everything is repeated time and time again. My digitalstream could copy stuff to USB, but it could only be played back on the machine, well to get audio anyway. Ways to get around it if need be.
I can’t see this freely being much better to be honest, only have to look at the mess of Freeview. But you never know they do have a clean slate, which is something they did not have when they took over the digital terrestrial system.
Maybe they think it will get people watching live TV again and get these people like myself who have dropped the TV licence to change their mind.
I doubt very much if it will, certainly won’t persuade me to get a TV licence
If it offers channels not available on terrestrial it could help drive up the take up of FTTP as ity gives more of a reason to upgrade
Will it? Streaming even 4K can be done over a FTTC connection as long as you are not too far away from the cabinet. I had 36Mb/s, and I streamed everything I wanted to. If people have such bad broadband that can’t stream in the first place, then that may get them to go to FTTP.
Maybe if they don;t lock people into long contracts or don’t put the prices so high, then people may change. BT sent me a card yesterday, saying that I can get 150Mb/s for £30.99 a month. they have to be kidding, if i did not have the alt net I would have gone with now broadband,
Most don’t live alone, Ad. As is often the case your personal experience isn’t a guide to the entire nation.
@Bob
I think eventually all the Freeview channels that come OTA will be moved over to Freely. I don’t think OTA TV is likely to stay once most of the country is FTTP
@XGS, you be surprised how many people do and even 2-3 people in a house can normally manage on 30 odd Mb/s. At the end of the day, many people still don’t have any choice and even when they do have a choice they decide not to, some because of loyalty to the ISP they are with.
@Chirag, I think it will be a very long time before terrestrial TV vanishes, even when most of the country is on FTTP. As it says on Everyone’s website, Championing free TV for all. Can’t do that if they get rid of terrestrial, Freesat was set up because some people can’t get a decent terrestrial signal. sister and hubby has Freesat, they find it better than Freeview.
The other thing is with this freely, will it be available on streaming sticks/boxes, like fire stick and Roku? TV sets can last for years, my last one was 14 years old, maybe older when I retired it and it still works if I need it to, just retired it as it was losing its brightness and I wanted something that took less energy. Also, will this freely just be as simple to use as Freeview, in that you turn the TV on and press a button to get to the channel you want? I hardly used the guide when I watched TV, the only time I used it was to record something. Old habits die hard, just press the number of the station you want. I suppose younger ones who are used to guides will use the guides more, but then younger ones are not bothering with normal TV and maybe that is another reason why this freely is being launched.
since it is supposed to be launching next year I thought they would have come up with some tech specs, after all, manufactures of TV sets will need to know.
We will see what happens I suppose and if it happens when they say and if it works.
I wouldn’t be surprised how many live alone, Ad, it’s in the census numbers.
I’m aware some manage fine on sub-40, but apparently not the majority given more are on the 80/20 service than the 40/10 or 55/10, and a third of those that can go full fibre have, with Openreach’s connections alone increasing 50% per year. Add to that another 15% of the country on Virgin Media and altnets.
This will help with FTTP take up. Once the child’s XBox game download makes BBC 1 buffer the parents will likely look to upgrade: they’re hardly going to implement QoS instead, are they?
@XGS
It will do nothing to drive take up of FTTP, For a start by the seems of it Freely will only be available on new TV’s. People who watch normal TV will carry on watching it the way they are. A chiolds X-box is not going to make BBC1 buffer as BBC1 will still be available via Freeview and if they have a good Freeview signal, what advantage would there be watching it online?
50% of what? It comes to something when Openreach have to force people to go to fibre, if people thought there was any advantage they would not have to be forced, but then we do a lot of that in this country.
We will see what happens and if it does any good, but some many services in this country starts up and don’t live up to the expectations, you only have to look at Freeview itself, the only reason it is used is that people have very little choice if they want to watch normal TV unless they use Freesat or one of the pay TV services. Dab is another thing that have failed, just about cope with speech, but music on Dab forget it.
As I said, we will see, since only new TV sets seems to be getting this new service, it will be years before it becomes the norm, that is if it is launched on time and not delayed for months or years.
Makes no odds to me.
At some point you just have to let the bloke at the end of the bar who thinks they’re omniscient and will share their expert opinion on anything in huge length just talk/write.
@XGS, we will wait and see, but I think what will drive up FTTP use will be streaming services like Disney+ and netflix, also maybe some online games. price is the problem for some people when you get FTTp costing more than FTTc, then some people are going to say, nope.
What about these places that refused to have poles and Openreach have pulled out laying FTTP, how are they going to be forced to have fibre? Also openreach is not going to cover the whole country with FTTP.
Okay some nice easy questions that I can answer.
‘What about these places that refused to have poles and Openreach have pulled out laying FTTP, how are they going to be forced to have fibre?’ – the most recently featured area already had Virgin Media: their network is going full fibre by 2028. Another was in the East Ridings of Yorkshire and already had FTTP through KCom. Those that have no prospect see below.
‘Also openreach is not going to cover the whole country with FTTP.’ – Indeed not. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/project-gigabit-uk-gigabit-programme should get pretty much everyone though, including subsidising Openreach to extend to the DiG areas they don’t pick up in their commercial deployment.
Pretty much everyone will have fibre, the OTA will be switched off and the RF used for data, IP-everything as it should be.
Picking up on another point:
‘50% of what? It comes to something when Openreach have to force people to go to fibre, if people thought there was any advantage they would not have to be forced, but then we do a lot of that in this country.’
The numbers quoted for take up and connection increase were before any of the stop-sells kicked in. FTTP is exceeding expectations, regardless of what you may see on poles as you walk around Hereford. Over 30% take up given the speed of Openreach build is exceptional and if it’s maintained or increases as the builds accelerate that’ll be extraordinary.
Some altnets are also doing great: only about 12% of customers change their ISP each year and in some areas altnets are absorbing all 12% and encouraging more churn. My own area is no guide at all but after less than a year the altnet is approaching 30% take up, this against Openreach, Virgin Media and CityFibre.
These are facts. These are cold, hard facts. They don’t care about your opinion, they don’t care about what you see in Hereford, they don’t care about what your mates have to say they are facts. If businesses lied about them people would be going to prison.
The conversion of TV and radio to digital has, in my opinion, led to a race to the bottom in terms of audio visual quality as multiplex offers seek to cram in more services. I hope Freely offers better picture and sound quality than Freeview.
visual quality of analog tv was bad. Also the further away from a transmitter you were the worse the picture was.
You have hit the nail on the head, digital we were told would be better. It should be, but with all the compression and fitting as much as they can into as small a space as they can, we end up with rubbish.
I listen to radio on FM, far better than DAB and DAB+ I like classical and Jazz.
A great step forward (:
BBC, ITV, 4oD etc… having their own apps is fine, for me personally. Older people such as my parents, no chance. They get confused navigating around.
Having it all available on Freely is going to be great, hopefully it’s as intuitive as a regular set up box from the past.
To add; hopefully the app comes to streaming boxes too; Apple TV, Shield, Fire and so on..
It looks like there are no plans to bring it onto older TV sets or any other hardware, but I suppose that could change.
Does anyone still watch TV? Does anyone still pay for a TV licence? If you have learned nothing over the last three and a half years, then you never will.
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I’m surprised nobody appears to be questioning the privacy implications.
Broadcast TV is completely private but all the streamers collect lots of info from your viewing habits.
What data will this service capture and who will own it?
Will users be able to control the data captured?
These issues need to be addressed up front, not dealt with as an afterthought
Ding ding ding. This is a gigantic privacy invasion. They’ll be able to track and identify every person who watches every programme – and advert.
You are right, there should be no tracking, no logging in required and not even capturing of the IP address.
Please tell me they’ll be broadcasting half the channels at 320×240 with crushed chroma, to keeop the authentic freeview feel?
We did this years ago with a little site called tvcatchup.com!
The broadcasters hated that people could watch their content on a device other than a tv and spent years trying to get us shut down.
A decade later they have finally realised we had the right idea. How times change.