Freeview is the collection of free-to-air services on the digital terrestrial television platform in the United Kingdom.
[3] Under the initial plans, the two multiplexes operated by Crown Castle would carry eight channels altogether.
The seventh stream became shared by UK Bright Ideas and Ftn which launched in February 2003.
The eighth stream was left unused until April 2004 when the shopping channel Ideal World launched on Freeview.
Pay television returned to the terrestrial platform in March 2004 when Top Up TV launched.
ITV Play was launched in April 2006, and Men & Motors was taken off Freeview to make way for this to happen.
It also reduced its broadcasting hours to 12:45 – 08:45 so National Lottery Extra and Gems TV could launch.
[6][7] Quiz Call was sold in November 2006, however because the deal did not include the Freeview slot it meant it had to close down.
[citation needed] ITV Play stopped programs in the early hours of 6 March 2007.
[12] The Jewellery Channel was removed in May 2008 because the broadcast license was not renewed, and was replaced by a second stream of Gems TV, which was referred to inside the EPG as "GEMSTV1".
[13] In January 2009, price-drop tv was replaced by Quest, gambling service Super Casino launched in new space on the SDN multiplex, Turner channel Nuts TV was closed and replaced with four-hours of news channel CNN International, and Arqiva announced that their latest new channel slot had been sold to UKTV who now use it to broadcast Dave ja vu (originally Dave +1, and is a one-hour timeshift of Dave).
Then, Russia Today TV announced that they were going to broadcast for a small amount of time during the day, timesharing with Dave +1.
Film4 now, instead of closing down in downtime hours, instead broadcasts teleshopping or an animated caption stating it will return at 11 am.
Around the same time, Gems TV ceased its second stream and was replaced by extended coverage of CNN.
However, it was, later in the year, reduced back to 9 am to 7 pm in Wales and to 7 am to 3 am for the rest of the UK, allowing Tease Me TV to launch.
[16] 18 million households were required to retune their television sets on or after midday on 30 September.
[15] The changes lead to several hundred complaints from people who had lost channels as a result of retuning their equipment.
During August 2010, Sky Sports 1 and 2 were made available on digital terrestrial television via BT Vision and Top Up TV.
On 23 August 2010, Sky Sports News was removed from the platform due to it becoming a pay TV channel.
On 30 November 2010, S4C2 was removed from Freeview, for this being because its live coverage from the National Eisteddfod and Royal Welsh show would be more heavily featured on the main S4C channel.
Gems TV stopped timesharing with Quest on 30 June 2011, as a new stream became available on the multiplex.
[23] Really launched on channel 20 on 2 August at 10 am, reducing Dave ja vu to a two-hour service between 2 am and 4 am.
Most Top Up TV set top boxes will still be able to receive Freeview channels In July 2013 Ofcom announced that they would make some of the spectrum freed up from the analogue switchover to launch two additional terrestrial multiplexes that could carry ten high-definition channels.
On 8 May 2014, Chart Show TV launched, but timeshares with Pop meaning it is night-time only.
On 30 August 2017, Kix was renamed Pop Max, with signs of change for programmes.
On 15th April, CCXTV is launched[citation needed] by Ideal World as an entertainment channel.
[31] On 29 and 30 June, numerous changes are made, some relating to the withdrawal of the COM7 broadcast multiplex, which led to services including FreeSports, Quest HD, BBC News HD and More4 +1 becoming unavailable on Freeview whilst continuing on other platforms; Forces TV closed on all its platforms at 11 am on 30 June, whilst PBS America +1 and QVC Beauty HD effectively closed altogether as they had broadcast only via COM7 and were not carried elsewhere.
[32][33] Additionally, the 4Music channel as broadcast on Freeview and elsewhere was replaced by E4 Extra, with a new 4Music continuing on satellite and cable in place of Box Hits; and AMC Networks International replaced Horror Channel with Legend, renaming CBS Drama as RealityXtra and moving it to be available in local-TV areas only, and withdrawing CBS Justice.
On the 22 March, local news became available on BBC One HD in some regions[34] On 21 June 2023, Great!
In addition, ITV2+1 stopped broadcasting 24/7 on Freeview as ITV cleared up a slot for ITVBe+1 and ITV3+1 to timeshare with it.