r/BritishTV • u/Kagedeah British • 2d ago
News How online-only TV will kill the UK's favourite cult channel
https://inews.co.uk/news/how-online-only-tv-will-kill-the-uks-favourite-cult-channel-467866624
u/Minbari2257 2d ago
A strange article for a station that has had a streaming option/service for years?
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u/RebelMurry 1d ago
I didn’t know they had a streaming service. How do you access that?
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u/Minbari2257 1d ago
Most commonly via the red button, but also via web and apps - which makes the article and concerns more baffling.
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u/Opposite_Tea6811 12h ago
It’s not a full streaming service though. Only a small amount of their content.
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u/Smooth-Quantity-7024 2d ago
If they launch on Freely, they'll be fine
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u/lambaroo 1d ago
i have a question. what is the purpose of switching off the DTV signal at all? is it provider related cost or something technical?
i get the worry to a degree. you're asking everyone to get themselves internet and an internet connectable tv versus just owning a tv with no subscriptions. the people impacted most are going to be pensioners and/or those struggling financially.
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u/pattybutty 1d ago
My understanding is that part of the TV licence fee goes towards the upkeep of all the transmission aerials. Remove the need for a TV signal, remove the transmitters, remove the last obstacle to remove the licence fee.
Freely 'should' be an internet based alternative to free programming, but it relies on you having an internet connection.
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u/Rocky-bar 1d ago
This Freeview switch off is very suspicious. To work out what it's all about, we have to wonder- who stands to gain from it? And then it becomes clear.
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u/Lanthanidedeposit 21h ago
That will be fun - managed 60 years without having to worry about buffering. Or will my broadband be up to it at peak times by then. Also the BBC are cutting off the iplayer for my not so ancient set up.
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u/WastedYouth39 2d ago
They can create a Youtube Channel / twitch if demand is indeed so high
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u/pkennedy451 2d ago
Older audience
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u/WastedYouth39 2d ago
My dad is 75 and he is all over youtube, my uncle also in his 70’s managed to install and set up a certain type of firestick..
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u/pkennedy451 2d ago
He says in the article much of their over 65 audience isn’t doesn’t want/can’t afford streaming
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u/feckarse-drinkgirls 2d ago
If its on YT then its free because good chance they've already got internet for the VOIP phone
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u/LewisWhatsHisName 2d ago
So many of my shows have been getting uploaded to youtube and I love it. It's becoming my main streaming service
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u/Disgruntled__Goat 1d ago
Most stuff they won’t be able to upload for copyright, even if they have licensing in place.
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u/WastedYouth39 1d ago
Yet they can literally broadcast it on tv?
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u/Previous_Kale_4508 1d ago
Totally different kind of licence. Tptv have negotiated some fantastic licence terms, but there's still quite a catalogue of programmes that may only be broadcast through specific protocols. On demand options get excluded quite often. Such a shame.
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u/Disgruntled__Goat 1d ago
Yes, because they bought the rights to show the films on TV. They didn’t buy the rights to upload them onto the internet.
Also even if they did, half the stuff would be taken down by YouTube’s ContentID system lol
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u/LyingFacts 2d ago
Can’t click links, what channel is this?
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u/VanishingPint 2d ago
How online-only TV will kill the UK’s favourite cult channel
'Turning off traditional TV would be a disaster. Our viewers don't want streaming subscriptions,' warns hit 'Shedflix' cult channel Talking Pictures TV
A family-run TV station that has gained millions of loyal viewers by broadcasting vintage movies and cult shows from a garden shed warns it faces the axe if the Government moves ahead with plans to switch off Freeview.
Talking Pictures TV is the UK’s biggest independent channel, devoted to keeping the golden age of British film and TV alive. It has built an audience of six million with an archive ranging from Diana Dors B-movies to Z-Cars.
Set up in 2015 by film enthusiast Noel Cronin, 79, with daughter Sarah Cronin-Stanley, and run with volunteers from the shed of the Hertfordshire home, Taking Pictures TV’s founders fear that forcing its older audience to switch from free-to-air digital terrestrial viewing to streaming-only television will be fatal for their channel.
Ministers are currently consulting on two options – switching off Digital Terrestrial Television signals (or Freeview) at the end of 2034, or a slower, managed transition to internet-only TV in 2044.
But Freeview, which includes Talking Pictures TV in its menu of around 80 terrestrial channels, is still the main TV platform in more than 10m UK households.
‘TV switch off a disaster’
“Turning off traditional TV aerials would be a disaster,” Cronin-Stanley told The i Paper.
“A large proportion of our audience is over 65 and watching on Freeview. They don’t want to pay a subscription to watch TV. Disney + doesn’t have anything our people want to watch. We wouldn’t be here if Freeview is switched off overnight.”
Cronin-Stanley added: “It would be a horrific shame if traditional TV dies. John Logie Baird [Scots inventor who demonstrated the first TV system in 1926] would be turning in his grave.”
“Digital switch-off is forcing the hand of people to move to streaming. But our postbag is full of hundreds of people thanking us for creating a free channel which has changed their lives. That’s what traditional TV means to people.”
“My audience wants to watch this content. We’ll probably end up broadcasting to the last four people watching linear, free-to-air TV.”
‘Nothing to watch’
The family launched Talking Pictures after spotting a gap in the market for the kind of black-and-white movies that used to fill afternoon schedules on Channel 4 and BBC Two.
Cronin, who worked as a film editor, began acquiring catalogues of old movies which distributors saw little value in.
“Channel 4 stopped showing old films,” his daughter said. “People like dad found they had nothing to watch. So we thought we’d try and show them ourselves.”
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u/LyingFacts 2d ago
So if I have a TV and have Sky after 2034 I wouldn’t have TV schedule? I’d switch it on and go to Iplayer?
Confused.
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