Top-Up TV Top-Up TV is hoping a cut-price subscription package can succeed where ITV Digital failed. "What Satellite & Digital TV" looks at the opening shot in a battle for the digital terrestrial airwaves It's almost 18 months since Freeview took over the digital terrestrial TV airwaves, and it can only be described a runaway success, getting into more than two million homes from a base of around 800,000 and giving British TV viewers a serious third option to cable or satellite for digital TV. Freeview's simple proposition of getting a cheap adapter - and possibly upgrading your aerial - with no ongoing subscription, has dramatically changed the perception that you have to pay for digital TV; 26 TV channels and 21 radio channels with very little fuss. Now it's set to get complicated again. Top-Up TV is about to launch 10 subscription TV channels - including Discovery and UK Gold - alongside Freeview for just £7.99 a month. There will be no long-term contract, unlike with Sky, cable or ITV Digital. There's a £20 one-off connection fee (£10 if you subscribe online) and if you want to stop watching, you just stop your payments and you'll be disconnected. Top-Up TV plans to launch in March 2004, but there's no firm date yet because of a last-minute wrangle with the BBC over the position the new channels will have in the EPG. Initially, it will be targeting viewers who still have an old ITV Digital adapter, but these will soon be joined by dedicated decoders and compatible IDTVs. To pick it up you'll need to be able to receive both Channel 4 and Five on Freeview, which are on the digital terrestrial multiplexes 2 and A. These still use the original 64QAM signal modulation, so the operators can squeeze in more channels per multiplex than Freeview. Following recent power increases, both multiplexes cover about 80 per cent of the population, but the 64QAM signals are more prone to interference, so viewers in fringe areas may have trouble picking them up compared with the more robust 16QAM multiplexes operated by the BBC and Freeview. Piracy was a major issue for ITV Digital because the early version of Seca Mediaguard encryption which it used had been comprehensively hacked. Up to 500,000 pirate viewing cards for ITV Digital were believed to be in circulation; they cost you as little as £5, but cost the service some of the millions of pounds which finally led it to go bust. Top-Up TV will be using the latest version of Seca Mediaguard which, it says, will last at least three to five years before the hackers break it. This is actually the same version of Mediaguard used by Sky Italia to combat pirates in Italy, with great success. Then there's the question of incentive; is it worth buying a £5 pirate card from a dodgy geezer in the pub when the full service costs just £8 a month? WHAT BOX? If you've got an old ITV Digital box from Nokia, Pioneer, Philips or Pace, then you'll be able to use Top-Up TV from the start. There may be up to 800,000 of these still in use, although anecdotal evidence suggests that many have been relegated to children's bedrooms or chucked in the bin and replaced with newer Freeview adapters. This is partly because many of the old ITV Digital boxes were out of date two years ago, am many will have reached the end of their natural lifespan. While TopUp TV won't be using them for anything intensive like interactive TV or digital text, they're still slower than the current boxes. Top-Up TV will broadcast a software update when it launches, enabling ITV Digital box-owners to upgrade their hardware to the new encryption format. Not surprisingly, several major manufacturers are interested in Top-Up TV, and Thomson is already committed to producing an adapter with a built-in card reader, which should be available soon after launch. Up to 400,000 British homes are also using an integrated digital TV to pick up Freeview. A few old Sony IDTVs, built for ITV Digital, cannot be upgraded, but the encryption on other older models will be brought up to date. Newer IDTVs are all required by law to have a common interface slot. This means they can be upgraded with a Conditional Access Module (CAM) - a credit card sized unit carrying the encryption technology, into which you slot your viewing card. When your viewing card arrives you will need to scan for the new channels before you insert the card. You'll then have to perform the software update to receive Top-Up TV's new encryption technology and either wait for your card to receive an automatic activation code or call TopUp TV to have your viewing card authorised. COMPLEMENTARY OR CONFUSING? Technical issues aside, many people are asking if we need a pay-TV service on digital terrestrial. After all, Freeview has proved successful precisely because it's free once you've bought the box. The BBC clearly fears Top-Up TV will confuse viewers, and its row about programme guide numbers is because it doesn't want encrypted channels sitting alongside free channels. Top-Up TV claims this is going back on an agreement made last year with the other Freeview channels, when they decided channels should be grouped by genres like news and music. Of course, they were only talking about free channels six months ago, and worries about compatibility with pay-TV could put off those who would just pick up an adapter in the supermarket (not to mention the easily confused staff in Dixons or Comet). The Freeview consortium certainly doesn't want to risk its chances of hitting three million or more viewers by the end of this year. Equally, the prospect of a few extra channels with premium content you won't see for months on Freeview, for less than a tenner a month, could be the incentive some people need to take the leap into digital. The glaring absence of Sky One will tarnish Top-Up TV for many. Sky chief James Murdoch made it clear to journalists in February that there are no plans to put Sky One on Top-Up TV, nor to make Sky Travel on Freeview any more like Sky One for the foreseeable future. E4 offers shows like The Sopranos, The West Wing and Six Feet Under several months ahead of Channel 4, but put the latest season of ER on just a week ahead of its free-to-air showing. Discovery and Cartoon Network are obvious draws, and UK Gold is always nice to have, once you've seen what's on. The lack of a minimum contract term will be attractive to many as well and, provided you've got a bank account or credit card, you'll be able to subscribe (although Top-Up TV won't take payments by cheque). Former ITV Digital customers will also be wary of backing another white elephant, but this shouldn't be a danger if there's any truth to TopUp TVs claims of needing just 300,000 subscribers to break even. The most hardened cynic would find it hard to predict this level won't be reached. lan West, one of the founders of Top-Up TV and a former executive at Sky, believes some of the channels on Freeview will be forced into payTV because there isn't enough advertising to sustain so many. He added: 'The BBC are slightly naive in thinking that because their channels don't need advertising, all these other channels can survive on advertising and low market penetration. 'Look at the last few channels which have joined Freeview - they're all shopping channels - because there isn't enough interest to run an entertainment channel on [it]. None of those channels have approached us yet, but I can see the day when channels like Ftn will need the revenue from subscribers'. You can subscribe to Top-Up TV by calling 08700 543 210, or visit the website at wwwtopup.tv Subscriptions can be made via credit card, Visa or Mastercard, or by Direct Debit. Customer enquiries can be addressed to 08 712 712 712, or via e-mail at enquiries@topuptv.com Your £7.99 per month will buy: | Bloomberg | News | Sam-10am | | Boomerang | Classic'toons | Sam-12pm | | Cartoon Network | New'toons | 6am-6pm | | Discovery | Documentaries | 12pm-11am | | Discovery Home & Leisure | DIY & hobbies | 6am-12pm | | E4 | Youth entertainment | 4pm-4am | | TCM | Classic movies | 7pm-7am | | UI(F od | Cookery | 10am-4am | | UI(Gold | Classic TV | 12pm-12am | | UK5tyle | Home improvement | 6pm-1111pm | | Television X (£9.991month) | | 11 pm-5am |
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