It’s coming soon with features never seen before on free services
When Freeview arrived in 2002, BBC iPlayer was years away from launch, the UK’s average broadband speed was 0.5Mbps and Netflix made money by posting DVDs to homes. Given the pace of change since, it seems almost incredible that Freeview is still around – let alone thriving as the UK’s biggest TV platform. But the launch of a new service means its days might finally be numbered.
Freely is the fresh face on the screen, and it’s the natural replacement for Freeview rather than its rival. It’s run by the same company (Everyone TV), is backed by the same broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5), and is likely to include UKTV channels.
Also, like Freeview, all content will be free – although once again it’s a definition of ‘free’ that somehow overlooks having to pay for a TV licence.
But it has one key difference: all the programmes are streamed over the internet, not through your aerial or satellite dish. That means it’s also the replacement for Freesat, which launched in 2008 and is still used in two million homes.
Everyone TV announced Freely last September, and in early February confirmed it would launch in the second quarter of 2024 (April to June). It also revealed what the electronic programme guide (EPG) will look like – these are the menus you need to flick through to find something to watch (see screenshot above).
But it’s features like the MiniGuide that Everyone TV hopes will tempt Freeview users to switch. This is a “pop-up interface” that appears each time you switch channels, letting you “easily discover related live or on demand content” (www.snipca.com/49180) – see screenshot below left. As you’re watching All Creatures Great and Smallon Channel 5, for example, you can scroll down to find other episodes and move to the right to see what’s on next.
There’s a Freely button on remote controls that opens the Browse feature to let you switch between live and on-demand content from one place. You can also pause and restart shows as they’re being broadcast. These are the kind of tools that viewers expect from services like Sky, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Everyone TV claims that they’ve never been on a ‘free’ TV service before.
Yet there’s plenty we still don’t know about Freely, such as what audio and video standards it’ll use and what the broadcast quality will be – HD, 4
