Freeview has finalised a minor shake-up to its TV Guide. Until now, Together TV was available on Channel 82 during the day before switching to Channel 790 between 5am and 8am.
Clearly, this made finding the channel at certain times of day unnecessarily confusing. It could also cause havoc for those with a hard-drive built into their Freeview set-top box for recordings.
Together TV +1 was found on Channel 285.
The confusing split between the two channel numbers is due to SDN, the ITV-owned commercial multiplex, granting a short-term bandwidth slot for Together TV after it announced plans to relaunch with wider availability across Freeview back in December.
Together TV is a free-to-air channel packed with popular shows, like Monty Don’s Italian Gardens, Hairy Bikers Comfort Food, Wilderness Walks with Ray Mears, and Nigella Lawson: The Cook That Made Me
TOGETHER TV
Starting this week, Freeview has straightened out some of the confusion. Together TV will now be broadcast in Standard Definition (SD) 24 hours a day on Channel 82. Meanwhile, Together TV+1 has migrated to Channel 92, which was previously used by the main channel to broadcast between 5 – 8am.
Lastly, Channel 285 becomes the home of Together TV IP, a streaming-only version of the same channel, which offers High Definition (HD) picture quality. This was previously home to Together TV +1. Unfortunately, the streaming version of the live channel cannot be recorded.
Thankfully, these types of duplications should soon become a thing of the past.
Freely is a next-generation platform from Everyone TV, the company behind Freeview and Freesat. Unlike its predecessor, Freely will be redesigned from scratch to stream terrestrial channels from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 over the internet.
Scheduled to launch sometime this year, Freely will handle streaming-only versions of channels very differently from existing Freeview boxes. When a Freely-approved stream exists, devices will be told to prioritise the online version of a channel.
Smart TVs and set-top boxes will only revert to terrestrial broadcasts, via an aerial, when internet connectivity is lost or unavailable.
Of course, if you haven’t connected your Freely TV or set-top box to an aerial, there’ll be no backup feed — so you’ll lose the channel completely.
However, it means there will no longer be any confusing duplication between internet-streamed and terrestrial versions of the same channel in your TV Guide. That should save viewers a headache.
Not heard of Freely before? The Freeview successor will be coming to Smart TVs in the coming months, but there are still many unanswered questions about Freely.
The latest shake-up to Freeview’s TV Guide was the second to take place this month, with the first round of changes rolled-out at the beginning of the month triggered by the end of seasonal channels.
Freeview will now revert to its usual cycle of monthly updates.
If your Freeview TV or set-top box hasn’t updated its channel numbers automatically, you might need to retune your device. This option is found in the settings menu.
