ITV Channel Islands HD

Is it not a quirk of the licencing system? ITV Channel Islands is still the licensee and therefore the retransmission of another region's HD output on BBC 'B' would break a license condition that demands that the output on BBC 'B' has to originate from the same licensee. Conveniently all the English licenses are held by one holder so the simulcast can come from another region. When ITV Channel Islands is wholly subsumed into the general ITV Licence this wouldn't arise. Hence the similar standard 'blackout' on Satellite too, albeit get around able with technical knowledge.

Okay if it’s something that can’t be legally advertised why is it going out on ITV SD? Is ITV HD and SD the same feeds (for whatever region or sunset - I know the regions that have opt outs on SD will often have a different HD versions)

It wouldn't be, Channel would be showing ITV Nightscreen when those overnight gambling programmes couldn't be shown in the Channel Islands.

STV, which isn't owned by ITV but part of the ITV network still schedules ITV Nightscreen instead of the Ideal World shopping channel simulcast as the current deal with ITV is for them to air it on their own franchises.

So the difference is just the gambling and since they HD mux is taking the London feed as separate HD encoders would be ridiculous for such a small area. What airs overnight on SD channel 3?

Do you mean what does ITV Channel Islands broadcast overnight, or ITV London?

I hadn't realised that although ITV plc bought Channel TV (the licensee for the ITV Channel Islands licence) that it wasn't fully merged - but thinking about it, there are likely to be issues with the Channel Islands being outside the United Kingdom legally, and thus having different legislation.

Doesn't PSB3/BBC B carry 'out of region' feeds in quite a lot of ITV plc areas ?

That said if ITV plc and ITV Channel Islands are still more legally separate than other ITV plc licence holders then I can see why Ofcom wouldn't allow a non-ITV Channel Islands feed to be broadcast on PSB3/BBCB.

However my guess is that there are advertising etc. issues around what can and can't be shown on the islands that differ to other ITV plc regions, and whilst ITV Channel Islands SD exists for that reason (so is compliant legally) the costs around creating and distributing an HD version on either DVB-S2 or T2 are more than the revenue that is likely to be generated?

(ISTR that when Channel TV (*) Islands re-broadcast the TVS (&Meridian) (*) off-air feed in the 80s and 90s the adverts shown during the time at which Channel were taking TVS, and not opting out for their own commercials, had to have 'Not in the Channel Islands' graphics for services that were advertised that were unavailable on the islands - and I suspect care was taken in scheduling commercials to ensure they were compliant)

(*) Channel TV was the pre-ITV plc ITV licensee/franchise holder for ITV the Channel Islands, TVS - Television South, and then Meridian, were the pre-ITV plc ITV licensees/franchise holders for ITV in the South and South East of England. (Prior to TVS, Channel TV used to rebroadcast Westward, the franchise in the South West of England, but the IBA re-engineered the off-air reception system, actually sited in France and microwave linked to Jersey, to receive TVS instead at the licence-changeover point)

That’s interesting that they don’t filter the PIDs carrying the audio/video etc. It should therefore be possible to watch ITV HD in the Channel Islands if you have a box or are using PC tuners where you’re able to add channels manually by their PIDs.

Here in Gloucestershire we get a filtered version of PSB2 from Ridge Hill, just carrying ITV West. But in this case the PIDs for everything other than ITV West are filtered out (it’s using a more robust DVB-T mode which requires the other data to be removed) as well as the SI being modified.

Having said that, the modification of the SI to remove references to anything other than ITV West hasn’t been kept up to date, so now there are ghost entries for E4+1 and the Accessible TV Guide.

Interesting to hear about the “Not in the Channel Islands” text. I think that had gone by the first time that I Saw Channel in the late nineties. The changeover to TVS wasn’t at the licence changeover point, however, it was about 1985.

When ITV regions first appeared on Sky Digital, Channel were still using the off-air Meridian analogue feed, so viewers in the islands (and anyone who tuned it in manually) saw a 4:3 (rather than widescreen) feed which, apart from local programming, had been received from transmitters in England.

This Wikipedia page shows what regions are available in each area, including on ITV +1 and ITV HD:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ITV_regions

I assume this is also why ITV+1 isn't available (at least on Freeview) in the Channel Islands and is replaced by ITVBe. Which actually probably rates quite well in the Islands now that Real Housewives of Jersey is airing!

This may be the case for Freeview, as I'm guessing the BBC is required to carry the HD output of the channel 3 license holder on the PSB 3 mux, which would have to be from Channel Television Ltd.

I don't think this limitation applies to satellite however. As far as I'm aware there's nothing stopping Sky putting the PSB broadcaster (Channel Television Ltd) on to channel 103, and ITV Broadcasting Ltd asking them to put ITV HD on to channel 176. As long as they don't HD channel swap it would be above board, so one can only conclude there are other legal issues at play.


To clear up any confusion here, the gambling (Jackpot247) is no longer broadcast on ITV. When it was on it was blacked out in the Channel Islands by ITV Nightscreen due to the different gambling laws in the islands, but as it's no longer broadcast we're saying that there must be other issues at play.

It was replaced in 2019 by a simulcast of Ideal World, which is broadcast in the Channel Islands.

How much local advertising is there on ITV CI these days?
Can't imagine those advertisers being happy if another region was being rebroadcast in the CI on +1 or in HD without their advertising.

Yes.

Also. There’s a satellite backup feed of the few Freeview muxes available. Does the satellite feed carry the feed bit for bit as it would on Freeview as such no encoding would be required on the transmitter end?

Yes, though each particular flavour of mux and the SI still has to be assembled at each transmitter. That satellite (27.5 W) only carries three 'ITV' HD regions as back ups. Cen West, STV, and UTV

https://en.kingofsat.net/pos-27.5W.php




The reason for the change, was the IBA built an improved off air SABRE receiver, (and had managed to cut through the red tape, for it to be installed on a French TV mast in Cherbourg). This received Rowridge, and not Stockland Hill, so the 'buddy' region had to change to TVS.

To this day I don't know whether the change was driven by geo-politics, or engineering !