Posting for information and general discussion as it was announced today by Everyone TV (BBC, itv, Channel 4 and 5), that "Freely" will be the IP streaming successor to Freeview.
There are numerous articles if you want to Google, but if not: BBC, ITV, C4 and C5 announce “Freely” streaming TV service
Britain’s biggest broadcasters have confirmed the development of a new free TV service that will deliver live TV over broadband.
Viewers will be able to browse and watch live TV channels, plus on-demand content, delivered straight to their smart TV via the internet. The service, to be known as Freely, will be managed by Everyone TV, the organisation behind Freeview and Freesat, and owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5.
The new service will provide millions of broadband-only homes with easy access to a single consistent experience for live free TV over IP. 4 million homes (about 15% of all homes) are now IP-only, according to latest figures.
The question of course will be, does BT/EE embrace this new entrant (could it's multicast platform be ideal for delivering this robustly on mass?), or could this be the final straw for their TV offering in an already crowded market?
Overnight, the benefit of getting Freeview channels delivered via BT/EE, disappears (apart from recording).
Official press release: https://www.everyonetv.co.uk/news/press-release/new-free-tv-service-via-ip
The service will launch in 2024, but will require a next-generation smart TV.
So what about the millions of existing non-next-generation TVs? I assume that the existing Freeview/Freesat systems will become obselete.
There was an interesting timeline article that RETRA hosted on its website earlier this year
https://retra.co.uk/news/timeline-of-changes-to-freeview-and-satellite-tv