English Entertainment
Discovery to kickstart ’04 with new launches
MUMBAI: Alliance One’s infotainment channel Discovery has slotted a slew of new programmes to ring in the New Year 2004.
The channel – which claims to have offered the entire English channel genre a stiff competition in 2003 – has lined up shows for the first quarter of next year, January to March.
The first among the new launches is Battlefield Detectives, which will air every Monday 9 pm to 10 pm, starting today (29 December) . The programme designed to unravel the secrets behind the world’s most fascinating military mysteries, will cover nearly thousand years of conflict.
Battlefield Detectives profiles seven of the most fascinating battles in history, says a company release. Complied by archaeologists, forensic scientists, metal-detector specialists and military experts, who ventured into famous battlefields, unearthed evidence and pieced together the events, the series will recreate battle scenes and replicate weaponry.
According to Discovery Communications (India) director – marketing Aditya Tripathi, “Battlefield Detectives explores landmark battles that have altered the course of history forever. We chose to bring this programme to India as it would appeal to a wide variety of people – from history buffs to military junkies, students, and everyone who loves a well-told story.”
In its yearend report, the channel has claimed to enjoy high reach among SEC A and B (viewers include entire family) through time bands including Sunrise, Woman’s Hour, Healthy Living, Discovery Kids, Action Zone, Family Time and Late Night Discovery.
In what seems like a bid to consolidate its claim, the channel will launch three specials: Herakleion: Lost Temple to the God on 25 January ’04, at 7 pm, Iceman: Hunt for a killer on 15 February at 7 pm and Alexander the great: Murder Solved on 28 March at 7 pm.
Other interesting shows will include Chef School, which profiles students and chefs at famous cookery academies (on Wednesdays 12 am); Celebrity Slimming – a complete dieter’s guide (Wednesday 1 pm and Thursday 10:30 pm);Dinosaur Planet, a peek into the world of Dinosaurs (Wednesdays at 10 pm); City Cabs, all about countries and their taxis (Thursday 10 pm);Thirsty Traveller – a guide to some of amazing places and their wines (on Fridays 11:30 pm) and Fashion Street , a low down on fashion, kitsch culture, modern trends (on Saturday 11 pm) – all scheduled to launch between January and March.
Amongst the heavy line up also include few popular international shows like Impact: Stories of Survival, World Poker Tour, Rivals, Monster House and While you were out. Discovery will also air new episodes of the most watched series like Baby Story, Classic Discovery, World’s Best, FBI Files, Speed, Science Frontiers, Junkyard Wars and Mystery nights.
While Discovery has already released the exhaustive list, it is yet to take a call on the dates of the launch, but channel officials offer that they should be rolled out within three months time.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
