28E news & forthcoming channels testing on Sky

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Movies 24 (epg 329) are launching a +2 hour time shift. The new channel is to be called More 24, & will launch onto epg 330 on October 16th.

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Avago on 841 in the EPG has been renamed Gala TV

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Five Life are testing on 12422 27500 2/3 tagged as "37 5-1"

They are scrambled in Videoguard

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Al Jazeera International is reported to be launching on November 1st. However there have been numerous launch dates given this year so "I'll believe it when I see it"

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Five US have started testing on 12422H 27500 2/3 -- "37 5-2" Testcard and epg only at the moment.

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BSkyB to launch UK version of Al Gore’s Current TV

UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB joined forces with Al Gore today to unveil a British version of his Current TV, a channel showing user-generated programmes. BSkyB Chief Executive James Murdoch and the former US vice president told Reuters in a joint interview they hoped to use the channel to democratise the broadcast medium by allowing viewers to produce and broadcast their own short films. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

“What we’re seeing here is just quality journalism finding new ways of coming to the fore and much more plurality in terms of the voices being heard,” said Murdoch, the younger son of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp owns 39 percent of BSkyB. ”I think you will always have an audience for something professionally produced … but what this does is really shows us that nobody has a sort of god-given monopoly on what professional story-telling is.”

Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 US presidential election to George W Bush, launched the channel with business partner and entrepreneur Joel Hyatt in August 2005 with fast-paced non-fiction programmes, or “pods”, aimed at 18-to-34-year-old Internet-savvy viewers. The viewer-produced videos last from a few seconds to 15 minutes and cover technology, the environment, fashion or politics. Viewers can send their videos to the www.current.tv Web site for selection for the channel.

Viewer-created programming makes up about 30 percent of the schedule for Current TV in the United States while the remainder is current affairs content produced by the channel. Murdoch said he learned about the power of user-generated videos after his company’s Sky News channel asked viewers for their footage of the Asian tsunami in 2004 and the attacks on the London transport system in 2005. ”It was one of the things that actually twigged for me to say … there is a whole community of people out there who are very eager to share what they’re seeing,” he said.

Current TV reaches nearly 30 million homes in the United States and will reach another 8.2 million Sky households when it launches in the next few months. Hyatt told Reuters the channel would be aimed at a UK audience using content from UK viewers but that it would also use videos from contributors around the world.


Media Network

[BGonaSTICK]

ITV confirmed yesterday that it intends to launch two +1 channels for ITV2 and ITV3.

The EPG numbers are yet to be confirmed for both channels, however they will both offer viewers a second chance to view daily schedules of ITV2 and ITV3.

The broadcast hours of both channels are yet to be announced.

Both channels will launch on the Sky EPG on Monday 30th October.

Source: ITV via SDO

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Five US launched onto 207
Five Life launched onto 209

Both on October 12th.

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Sky are launching Prem Plus HD on October 16th. It will get epg 483.

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The Globecast 1 test that was showing NTV on 12560H is now showing a black level.