March 2023

10 March

Gary Lineker, this is most likely proof that the BBC has indeed been infiltrated by the Tories in some key positions given they are trying hard not to allow him to put out his own opinion. Alan Shearer and Ian Wright have said they won't appear on tomorrow's Match of The Day in solidarity with Gary Lineker.

https://news.sky.com/story/gary-lineker-stepping-back-from-role-as-match-of-the-day-presenter-12830108

Happy 40th and goodbye!

The love in with streaming over linear TV continues as ITV decides to axe the CITV Channel in favour of there just being a kids TV section on the streaming/catch up service ITVX called imaginatively enough ITVX Kids, you might wonder here why they didn't honour the heritage of the CITV brand by calling the section that instead.   CITV has existed as a full channel since 2006 and it was known before that as the afternoon block of programmes after school on the main ITV. Any hope of eventually getting CITV HD has of course gone now!  The launch of the channel in 2006 was after the era of course of the CITV studio and presentation which made it more of a simple menu of childrens shows and animation, with Mr Bean - The Animated Series featuring the most heavily over the years, there were a handful of imports too alongside the original British shows from such established names as Scooby Doo & Pokemon amongst them. A further thought is with the FAST linear channels on ITVX such as "Comedy Classics" & "Always Saturday Night", could ITVX Kids not also be one of those at least?

 https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a43271417/itv-citv-axed-itvx-kids/?utm_content=buffer6151c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=mainfacebookpost&fbclid=IwAR1VYnlAbcFhEErEOfZBORO-7ecGbwSAQproI6zipi9E9LVrcXBDAyqhUrk

In January 2013 CITV ran a weekend of classic shows to mark their 30th anniversary which included repeats of programmes such as "Children's Ward", "Knightmare" & "Wizadora" this was sadly not done again for their 40th anniversary in January 2023, Whilst the CBBC channel scaled back their hours again to 7pm following the re-emergence of BBC THREE as a linear TV channel in 2022, CITV continued to have its broadcast hours culminate at 9pm.

Sky have again showed their ugly corporate side in now deciding to make it so that subscribers to the 2022 launched "Sky Stream" will no longer be able to own their device.  Sky Stream is an internet only way of subscribing to Sky, albeit without the extras of the legacy Sky+HD/Sky Q boxes that offer timer recorded programmes to hard drives alongside in the newer Sky Q which launched in 2016's case, a rail of some of the streaming apps such as Disney+, Prime Video & Netflix, some of which are part of the Sky interface.

More Sky anti consumerist lunacy.

Here's a sort of Sky Fire Stick but it remains ours!

Sky launched the Glass TV back in 2021, I thought it was a ludicrous idea as they forced the customer to have to buy a brand new TV just to access Sky's content over the internet, and of course it was a case of "own nothing and be happy" as there was no built in hard drive, it was a lacklustre 4K TV (some say online in comparison to equivalent size Sony and Samsung sets!) with Sky menus built in, if the streaming app and Sky's catch up and box sets didn't have a programme you couldn't see it, and the live channels were just that live streams, you can't 

Sky Stream - Another load of restrictive junk where you can't even record and the device isn't even yours!

rewind them (OK you can for some Sky own branded channels).  Overall it seemed to me that it was moving in the direction of offering less over the satellite TV method of receiving Sky and of course at least you can say that with Sky Q it offers the best of both worlds, the ability to record anything from live TV alongside the ability to stream TV from both Sky and some big
streaming services.  In 2022 they launched Sky Stream as the same concept as Sky Glass only without the need for the bloody TV this time, this time it would come on a small streaming puck that's not too dissimilar to the size of an Amazon Fire Stick but with the same internet only drawbacks as Sky Glass.  

Still overpriced and fairly restrictive at least it offered a bit more "Sky" than the scaled back internet only service of theirs "Now TV" does, yet still with quite considerably less live channels than actally broadcast on satellite (both pay and free to air) and with an unhealthy reliance on programmes and films being available from Sky & other streaming services over the internet, this would exclude for example "Benny Hill" on That's TV as neither the live channel nor are any programmes shown available on demand, music channels are another example in that the Now channels & Clubland are not available as live streams but they are available free to air on Satellite, and you can also forget the convenience of any +1 hour channels with Sky Stream, whilst the channel list is not insubstantial but it is in no way complete enough., so I'll stick with satellite thanks!

  But if you are in some situation where you are forced out of having a satellite dish then Sky Stream might seem like a more attractive proposition. But now they've put the big disadvantage that Sky Q has onto Sky Stream, they now don't want any new customers to actually own the device. They've been obsessed with this idea since the launch of Sky Q back in 2016 which is why I've personally actually avoided it and stuck with a legacy Sky+ HD box, they expect you to not only permanently rent the box off Sky but also to bother with sending it back if you are ever done subscribing to them, now they want ex Sky Stream subscribers to stuck the puck in the post as well. It's a ludicrous idea because at least if they let the equipment sit there because it's owned by you it's quick and easy to resubscribe, that's at least part of the reason why I've responded to various offers by Sky over the years to get the channels back on, but if the  box had been ripped out and a generic satellite receiver now stood in its place. I do have a free to air satellite receiver actually so I can keep the recordings off TV but that's another matter, I wouldn't touch Sky Stream with a 20 foot bargepole now they actually went you to rent the streaming stick off them and treat the device like it's been dropped off by MI5 that you have to mail back to them once you've decided you've had enough of Sky, it's a streaming stick leave it in the customers hands and tempt them to resubscribe if there's churn.   One of the big things about sitting around and watching TV is laziness, what couch potato wants to go round the back of their TV undoing all the satellite cables just to send some proprietary box back to Sky, they hope that the other option is paying £50 a month or more just to keep it in place because it's a bit fiddly round the back of the TV so better not cancel the direct debit. And if the cost of living crisis gets a bit costly, you always lose all recordings on the Sky Q box permanently because you have to send it back to them, if it sat there unsubscribed like all the former Sky+ HD boxes the recordings came back when you lost a bit of self control and caved in to one of their offers, and now 12 months isn't even good enough for them it has to be 18 months, why not make the commitment a decade, you can have the entertainment pack for £15 a month but you've got to commit to a decade, I'll check my diary I might be meant to be dead in a few years but I think I'll chance it, just to watch Gold and Sky Showcase.

UK No 1 - Miley Cyrus - Flowers.