Top Up TV
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Top Up TV is a pay television service that operates in the UK on the Digital Terrestrial Television platform alongside the Freeview service. It was launched on March 31 2004 by two former BSkyB executives, to the surprise of some who considered the collapse of ITV Digital in 2002 to be the end of pay television on the platform.
Unlike ITV Digital, the service offers a basic, but popular selection of channels (according to the BARB ratings), rather than the more expensive sports and movie channels that were offered by ITV Digital. 10 channels are available on the service but these are timeshared; only five are on air at any moment in time. With a monthly subscription charge of £7.99, the service is aimed at those viewers who do not wish to pay £10–£40 (approx €15–€60) per month to Sky Digital or cable operators, yet want a little bit more than Freeview offers. Examples of programming include repeats of British television classics like Only Fools and Horses and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet as well as documentaries from Discovery and the UKTV Network.
Non-subscribers to Top Up TV can view a sample of the channels transmitted on the service on Freeview channel 36 ("Xtraview") for £1 a day - the Top Up channels are transmitted in two hour slots throughout the day, and a release code can be obtained by telephoning the operators.
The BBC, a member of the Freeview Consortium, has accused Top Up TV of confusing customers [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3492399.stm). Top Up TV has often been criticised for lack of channels and programmes ending in the middle due to the timeshare system.
The service is aiming for 250,000 subscribers within the next year, in order to break even. The service is available through new digiboxes with card slots, integrated digital television sets with a CAM or legacy boxes from ONdigital / ITV Digital. During the first month on air the service gained around 20,000 subscribers. Top Up TV reported a figure of 140,000 subscribers in February 2005 [2] (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/02/13/cntop13.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2005/02/13/ixcity.html).
Top Up TV transmits its channels on a multiplex owned by SDN, originally a subsidiary of S4C, NTL, and UBM. On 27 April 2005 SDN was sold to ITV plc, which is reported to have its own plans for the multiples once Top Up TV's contracts expire in the autumn of 2010, therefore the long-term future of the service may be in some doubt.
On 27 May 2005, E4 left the Top Up TV roster in order to become a free-to-air channel. It was replaced by British Eurosport which began broadcasting on the platform on June 1 2005.
Channels
On air time in brackets
- 17 - UKTV Gold (12:00-00:50)
- 25 - TCM - (17:00 - 05:00)
- 26 - UKTV Style - (18:00 - 23:00)
- 27 - Discovery Channel - (12:00 - 23:00)
- 28 - Discovery Real Time - (06:00 - 12:00)
- 29 - UKTV Food - (10:00 - 14:00)
- 32 - Cartoon Network - (06:00 - 18:00)
- 33 - Boomerang - (05:00 - 12:00)
- 44 - Bloomberg - (05:00 - 10:00)
- 49 - British Eurosport - (14:00 - 23:00)
- 60 - Television X (Costs extra on top of the £7.99 monthly subscription fee) - (23:00 - 05:00)
External Links
- Top Up TV (http://www.topuptv.com/)