Five will join Freesat within the next few months as the service marches towards a 230-channel line-up by early 2009.
Freesat managing director Emma Scott told Wotsat that Five has settled issues with rights holders and will set a launch date shortly.
Spin-off channels Fiver and Five US aren't yet scheduled to join the Freesat line-up, as they have yet to decide new terms with programme-makers, particularly the international providers of shows like CSI and Home & Away, she added.
"Five are coming on this year and we are hoping for an announcement shortly. They would have liked to have been there at the launch, but it was not possible because of rights issues."
The Freesat line-up is expected to include around 230 channels by early 2009, but technical issues with Sky are limiting Freesat to adding them in batches.
"We wanted to launch with them all, but it was not possible. We have got every free-to-air channel that wants to be on Freesat pre-registered already, and we expect to have have the full 230 early next year.
"We have got some exciting international and music channels coming up, including one exclusive Freesat channel, and hopefully more HD content.
"It's slightly decided by a timetable set down with Sky, which concerns the uplinking arrangements so we do not interfere with their EPG and they do not interfere with ours.
"The EPG data is an additional component which is added to the broadcast stream, and they were not able to combine it for all the channels in time for our launch."
Posted by Lee B (127.0.0.1) on July 24, 2008 at 02:47 PM BST #
Posted by Richard (127.0.0.1) on July 24, 2008 at 03:40 PM BST #
Both Dive +1 & Hallmark +1 have scrambled & joined the Sky epg.
Posted by Ross Lockley (127.0.0.1) on August 07, 2008 at 07:07 PM BST
Website: http://www.analoguesat.co.uk #
Posted by Lee B (127.0.0.1) on August 15, 2008 at 08:51 PM BST #