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+--- Thread: 4Music to become E4 Extra (/showthread.php?tid=1202)
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - Aplus1 - 17-06-2022
(13-06-2022, 10:32 AM)frasergj Wrote: Box Hits rebranding as E4 Extra then the programming 'moving' from 4Music to it (leaving 4Music as music only) would make more sense from a viewer perspective.
Technically easier to do it as the article says though.
I'm not sure viewers would see the logic in Box Music - a music-only channel - "rebranding" into an Entertainment channel, though. Personally I think it makes much more sense for 4 Music, a channel already showing entertainment programming for most of the day, to take a new name which better reflects that programming, and for the old 4 Music name to pass to a dedicated music channel.
(13-06-2022, 04:29 PM)James2001 Wrote: Surely we're at the point where, on satellite and cable at least, they could close down the SD channels as surely pretty much everyone on them has a HD box now? Certainly on Virgin all active subscribers were moved to HD boxes years ago (and I think they turned off MPEG2 even for SD channels years back and it's all H.264 now, and they have turned off the SD versions of many channels, though not all). Not sure if it's the case for Sky, but there surely can't be many legacy boxes left there niw.
DTT of course is another story.
Close down the SD channels and replace them with what, though? HD channels? Those cost substantially more for the broadcasters to transmit, which gets them no benefit, and generally the economics would dictate any mid-sized HD channels would need to join a subscription package to offset that cost, so viewers pay more as well.
That's pretty strong "no benefit to anyone" territory.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - James2001 - 17-06-2022
But there's already countless channels which broadcast in both SD and HD- is there any point keeping both the SD and HD versions running if everyone can get the HD versions? They're paying to broadcast both versions, and yes, that space could be used for launching more channels or letting some channels which are SD only be able to switch to HD. Yes, there's a benefit.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - Aplus1 - 17-06-2022
(13-06-2022, 10:29 PM)Brekkie Wrote: That's a real shame. They'd be no harm in giving it the downtime of Film4+1 so it airs through to midday - that way Freeview viewers still effectively get the music content they currently do. They could potentially make it available outside those hours as a streamed channel too.
Film4+1 doesn't have downtime - it's showing teleshopping in those hours, which is a revenue-generating broadcast. As you say, it'd obviously be nice to devote it to something more interesting but for C4 it would be a question of which would make more money - music videos (which are hard to monetise with spot advertising) or teleshopping (where the income is rather more obvious.)
(17-06-2022, 02:09 PM)James2001 Wrote: But there's already countless channels which broadcast in both SD and HD- is there any point keeping both the SD and HD versions running if everyone can get the HD versions? They're paying to broadcast both versions, and yes, that space could be used for launching more channels or letting some channels which are SD only be able to switch to HD. Yes, there's a benefit.
On satellite, most of the HD channels require an additional HD subscription. So no, there'd be no benefit to viewers in closing down the SD services which they are quite happy with.
Also, many SD channels carry local advertising, which would not be affordable to duplicate in HD. So a second reason why closing them down is of no benefit to broadcasters either.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - Brekkie - 17-06-2022
(17-06-2022, 02:21 PM)Aplus1 Wrote:Surely more people will catch the ads every 15 minutes on 4Music than sit through six hours of teleshopping.(13-06-2022, 10:29 PM)Brekkie Wrote: That's a real shame. They'd be no harm in giving it the downtime of Film4+1 so it airs through to midday - that way Freeview viewers still effectively get the music content they currently do. They could potentially make it available outside those hours as a streamed channel too.
Film4+1 doesn't have downtime - it's showing teleshopping in those hours, which is a revenue-generating broadcast. As you say, it'd obviously be nice to devote it to something more interesting but for C4 it would be a question of which would make more money - music videos (which are hard to monetise with spot advertising) or teleshopping (where the income is rather more obvious.)
(17-06-2022, 02:09 PM)James2001 Wrote: But there's already countless channels which broadcast in both SD and HD- is there any point keeping both the SD and HD versions running if everyone can get the HD versions? They're paying to broadcast both versions, and yes, that space could be used for launching more channels or letting some channels which are SD only be able to switch to HD. Yes, there's a benefit.
On satellite, most of the HD channels require an additional HD subscription. So no, there'd be no benefit to viewers in closing down the SD services which they are quite happy with.
Also, many SD channels carry local advertising, which would not be affordable to duplicate in HD. So a second reason why closing them down is of no benefit to broadcasters either.
As for SD v HD Sky are slowly but surely moving in that direction but yes, Sky being able to monetize HD has prevented it becoming the norm. You would think with HD (and ad free) generally being the norm on the streamers Sky and NOW would have moved in that direction too but as long as they can make money from the public they'll continue to do so.
And whilst it is true that HD takes more bandwidth and thus has been more expensive once you factor in changes to the transponder type and removing simulcasts the difference isn't quite as much as it first seems.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - RR - 17-06-2022
If you assume that the biggest commercial broadcaster is ITV, they have only broadcast their ITV2, ITV3, and ITV4 HD channels as part of a pay package. If they are unable to make the FTA economics work, then it won't work for virtually anyone.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - James2001 - 17-06-2022
(17-06-2022, 02:21 PM)Aplus1 Wrote: On satellite, most of the HD channels require an additional HD subscription. So no, there'd be no benefit to viewers in closing down the SD services which they are quite happy with.
But thats's Sky and their moneymaking choice. It's not like it on other platforms, and doesn't have to be like it on Sky either.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - Brekkie - 17-06-2022
Exactly, though Freeview is also at fault for not making the progress it should have done which would have forced similar decisions on HD channels as it did in the noughties on whether to keep channels behind a paywall. If the ITV/C4 DVB mux was DVB-T2 they could still host 12 channels on it, but with half of them in HD.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - Aplus1 - 17-06-2022
(17-06-2022, 03:17 PM)James2001 Wrote: But thats's Sky and their moneymaking choice. It's not like it on other platforms, and doesn't have to be like it on Sky either.
By "other platforms" you must mean Virgin, but that's a slightly different arrangement as it's a closed platform where the broadcasters are not (usually) required to pay for the cost of the capacity that they occupy. As such, any broadcaster can say "Sure, you can have this channel in HD" and it doesn't cost them an increased amount to buy the space that the channel will take up. Likewise Virgin say "Great, we'll take it" because they see a marketing advantage in having HD available at no extra cost - although as Virgin customers are paying good money from the get-go - there ARE no free channels on Virgin - you could argue that there is still a cost to the viewer, it's just not optional and separately identifiable.
On satellite, HD channels need more capacity and you can't escape it - that costs more. Even if a broadcaster closed an SD feed to compensate, the cost to the broadcaster of an HD channel is still many times more the cost of an SD channel. There is literally nothing in it for the broadcaster unless there is some form of benefit - such as subscription revenue - to offset the loss. We can grump about Sky's "moneymaking choice" but without that avenue there would be no way for most channels to afford HD at all, just resulting in far fewer HD channels to watch, full stop.
On Freeview, HD capacity is limited and the maths become even more acute. Broadcasting on Freeview is very substantially more expensive than broadcasting on satellite, so the cost/benefit balance is even more against you. And of course, because Freeview has been engineered to prevent subscription channels, neither the broadcaster nor the viewer even has the choice of an HD channel made available at an additional cost.
Shutting down SD channels won't bring about some magical harvest of new free HD channels. There's nothing in it for the broadcaster, or the viewer. Yes, it would be nice if that weren't so, but broadcasters have to live in the world as it really is, not a perfect utopia that exists only in the mind. So be clear what you mean when you ask for SD channels to be closed, because in effect you're asking for channels to be closed down entirely, with no replacement.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - London Lite - 17-06-2022
Television is just like digital radio in the UK, consumers prefer the choice of having more stations using low bitrates than HiFi quality audio, which has now been left largely for the internet to provide.
I think the internet will eventually fill the void where if viewers want to watch at least full HD, they'll have to pay for it or pay extra for it on Sky.
It does baffle me why viewers buy large screen tvs and then watch 544x576 low bitrate SD streams on Freeview, but that's their choice.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - JetixFann450 - 19-06-2022
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - Charlie - 19-06-2022
Whether the channel will actually be broadcast in HD on All4 or not is a doubtful question, let alone E4 Extra being streamed on the platform in the first place considering it is taking the broadcasting rights of 4Music's entertainment programming and when you often watch 4Music on their website, right now, you'll get a rather outdated Box Plus message saying "STREAMING IS UNAVAILABLE".
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Aren't the All4 livestreams still in SD? I might be wrong but I think it's only the VOD stuff is in HD.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - Zaccy_Dee - 19-06-2022
(19-06-2022, 04:33 PM)Charlie Wrote: Aren't the All4 livestreams still in SD? I might be wrong but I think it's only the VOD stuff is in HD.I'm pretty sure they are HD as during the Red Bee transmission fire during autumn last year, a 4 HD DOG appeared on the All 4 stream.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - London Lite - 19-06-2022
All4 live streams are SD. The vast majority of catch-up is 1080p.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - no1fanofthepals - 19-06-2022
(19-06-2022, 08:49 PM)London Lite Wrote: All4 live streams are SD. The vast majority of catch-up is 1080p.
Considering Channel 4 has its HD version of Freeview, it really should be HD on All 4 as well.
RE: 4Music to become E4 Extra - bkman1990 - 21-06-2022
There is one little problem here with scheduling programmes when E4 Extra is launching on June 29th. Batwoman only has 6 episodes left in it's current run on the CW channel in the U.S. and on E4 in the UK. The six remaining episodes have not been shown on E4 yet which will take the show up to a total of 51 episodes.
However there will be no more episodes produced for Batwoman in future because the show was officially cancelled along with DC Legends of Tomorrow by the CW a few weeks ago. The CW are stil committing themselves to produce Superman & Lois and their new show called Gotham Knights in the near future. There is also only one day left to watch the previous episodes of Batwoman Season 3 on the All4 website and app. Would this mean that the remaining episodes of Batwoman would be shown on E4 Extra from late June/early July?