Top Up TV

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Top Up TV
Type	DTT Pay TV and Download Service
Founded	2004
Headquarters	Jersey
Key people	David Chance and Ian West
Industry	Media
Products	Pay TV services Programming
Slogan	Just select and play
Website	topuptv.com

Top Up TV is a British television company registered on the island of Jersey, that offers subscription television services via digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom. It operates alongside the Freeview service, but is otherwise unconnected with Freeview.

Contents 1 Services 2 Company 3 History of Top Up TV 4 Top Up TV Anytime 4.1 Programming 4.2 Packages 4.3 Equipment 4.3.1 Firmware 5 Streaming service 5.1 Channels 5.2 Subscriber base 5.3 Pricing 5.4 Changes to Service 6 Pay per view services 6.1 Past 7 Broadcast Capacity 8 Promotional services 8.1 Top Up TV Active 8.2 Top Up TV Promo 8.3 Top Up TV Sampler 9 Controversy 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Services

Its main pay-TV package, Top Up TV Anytime, is a Push-Video on Demand service offering programming from a range of UK television channels that are downloaded daily onto a digital video recorder (DVR). It also operates the pay per view service Television X via Xtraview technology, and also a now-limited linear pay-TV service offering access to seven 'live' timeshared television channels. It broke into the pay-TV market in 31 March 2004 with its initial 10-channel timeshared lineup, but has recently had to alter their business plan due to changes in the DTT market, and therefore that service is now closed to new subscriptions.

[edit] Company

The company is headed by two former BSkyB executives, David Chance and Ian West. It became the first pay television service to launch on the platform after the collapse of ITV Digital in 2002. Top Up TV was available through ONdigital and ITV Digital boxes, new set top boxes with card slots, and integrated digital television sets (IDTV's) with a CAM. A 20% stake of the company was purchased by Five in December 2005^[1].

[edit] History of Top Up TV

Top Up TV, as Newincco 166 Ltd, attempted to make an application for the multiplex licence bid for multiplex D on the DTT service in 2002 as a joint application with Carlton, Granada and Channel 4, trading as the Digital Terrestrial Alliance (DTA). The company were prepared to offer a "viable" and "lite-pay" service, which would have provided a large number of free to air channels and a few pay-TV ones [1]. The bid was unsuccessful, and the licence was instead awarded to Crown Castle, which later became National Grid Wireless.

After the turn-down of a multiplex bid, Top Up TV turned to public service broadcasters Five and Channel 4 to gain capacity on the platform. On multiplex A, Top Up TV were granted four long-term streams (one of which previously hosted TV Travel Shop), and on multiplex 2, were granted one short-term stream from Channel 4. They came up with a time-shared system which allowed 10 pay-TV channels to be broadcast in the space of five television streams, two of which were allotted "empty" space, which later became abc1 and Teachers' TV. The sixth stream was used as a temporary measure (as of the short-term contract with Channel 4), and hosted pay-per-view channels Xtraview and Red Hot.

Top Up TV focused less on the premium services which were prominent of ITV Digital prior to 2002. By 2005, eleven channels were available on the service but were all time-shared. Overnight this dropped to as few as two channels (from the main package), in order to make space for premium adult entertainment channels.

[edit] Top Up TV Anytime

On 30 August 2006 Top Up TV announced that it was to launch a new service known as Top Up TV Anytime, and is expected to launch in December 2006. This will enable the viewer to watch some programming from new and existing channels once downloaded onto a special digital video recorder (DVR). Existing set-top boxes with slots and PVRs will not be compatible. The service comprises various programmes downloaded to the DVR each night of the week using spare capacity, totalling to around 90 hours per week of programming. All programming is broadcast on multiplex A, using the three channels "TopUpTV Anytime" on LCN's 38 to 41. These programmes are recorded on the hard disk of a digital video recorder (DVR) ^[2], ready to be played back on demand. The service will fully replace Top Up TV's 7-channel live streaming model, as Top Up TV 20% shareholder, Five, announced they were to launch two new digital channels via the Freeview platform, using space being leased out to Top Up TV. Five's new channels, Five Life and Five US, launched in October 2006 and took two of the streams used to broadcast Top Up TV, one of which was 24 hour and the other running from 6am to 11pm. Freeview channel Teacher's TV, also sharing with Top Up TV's capacity, also had to change its broadcast hours because of the service.

[edit] Programming

Top Up TV has indicated that Top Up TV Anytime will provide 90 hours per week, equivalent to 13 hours per day, of downloaded programmes. The service broadcasts a variety of programmes from the following television channels:

• UKTV Gold
• LIVINGtv
• Hallmark Channel (UK)
• Discovery Factual
• Cartoon Network
• Toonami
• Boomerang
• Disney Channel (UK)
• Nickelodeon
• Bloomberg
• Animal Planet
• UKTV Style
• UKTV Food
• Life & Times
• TCM
• British Eurosport
• Discovery Lifestyle
• MTV
• Paramount Comedy

Plus additional service:

• PictureBox Additional Monthly Charge.
• Setanta Sports Additional Monthly Charge.

[edit] Packages

All of the content from the Top Up TV Anytime service (except PictureBox movie service & Setanta Sports) is included in a £9.99 per month price package. Customers may select the channels they wish to receive in order to manage the space on their DVR more efficiently. The PictureBox movie service costs an additional £5 per month to TUTV Anytime subscribers. PictureBox is available as a standalone service costing £7 per month. PictureBox provides one movie from Universal Studios for subscribers to watch each night.^[3] Certain "live" programming will be shown as part of British Eurosport, but it is unsure whether any other of the channels will have "live" capability for live events (Such as Most Haunted Live on LIVINGtv) once the "old" streaming service is phased out.

Concerns have been raised over the security and viability of Setanta's digital terrestrial channel provided by Top Up TV because the MediaGuard encryption system was cracked in continental Europe in 2004. Sky's Sky Italia service suffered heavy losses due to piracy and more than 3 million Italian homes accessed pay-TV services through hacked decoder cards for conditional access set top boxes and conditional access modules for digital televisions and personal video recorders. Sky Italia had to switch from the insecure MediaGuard to the secure Videoguard cryptographic algorithm encryption system. This issue has been covered by both the Guardian and Financial Times newspapers and has led to growing speculation that digital terrestrial pay-TV piracy could increase within the United Kingdom once the 2007/2008 football season starts.

Citations: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,3604,1188713,00.html http://www.accessmylibrary.com/comsite5/bin/pdinventory.pl?pdlanding=1&referid=2930&purchase_type=ITM&item_id=0286-20699182 http://www.kudelski.com/pressreleases/get_pdf.php?id=1113556992_64

[edit] Equipment

To receive Top Up TV Anytime, a subscriber must purchase a proprietary Top Up TV Anytime digital video recorder (DVR) built for Top Up TV by Thomson. The Top Up TV Anytime DVR automatically records programmes broadcast overnight. The user can then watch the stored programmes on demand^[4].

The DVR costs £180. However for new customers, there will also be a £20 connection fee and the requirement to pay one month's subscription in advance giving a total start up cost of £209.99. You also (if an existing customer) can purchase the box for £75 (12 month contract) or £99 (monthly contract). Top Up TV are offering discounts to existing subscribers to the original time-share service.

Existing set-top boxes (STB), IDTVs with conditional access module slots, and PVRs will not be compatible with Top Up TV Anytime. This has given rise to some speculation in the media, including in The Stage ^[5], that this move will provoke a backlash and cancellations among existing subscribers, as they will have to purchase yet another expensive set top box.

There were many complaints about the quality of the Top Up TV Anytime digital television recorder made by Thomson and so many customers complained to the BBC's Watchdog consumer programme on BBC1 that they featured this product on the 23 January 2007 edition of the show. The box was described as "not fit for purpose" by one very dissatisfied customer and customers have reported many problems such as box crashing, picture freezing, cooling fans not working, failing to record and failing to pick up signals. Despite the numerous box updates, many people are still experiencing problems and this has resulted in the reporting of many cancellations on different internet forums such as Frequencycast (www.frequencycast.co.uk), Radioandtelly (www.radioandtelly.co.uk) and DigitalSpy (www.digitalspy.co.uk).

[edit] Firmware

The Top Up TV Anytime DTR has so far had numerous firmware revisions since it's launch.

Pre-1.50/1.00 (Suspected) - Pre-release firmware. Was to be shipped firmware, but all boxes were delayed and updated due to Disney Channel being added to the lineup just before launch. Also, numerous bugs were fixed in this time too.
1.50 - Shipped firmware.
1.80 - First firmware update.
2.00 - 08/01/2007 - Second firmware update.
2.44 - 12/03/2007 - Third Firmware Update. Fixed many problems with the box crashing, rebooting, and missing or deleting recordings. Also added series link, which allows the whole series of a show to be downloaded automatically.

[edit] Streaming service

Top Up TV also provides a conventional line-up of seven time-shared streaming television channels to customers who subscribed to the service prior to the launch of Top Up TV Anytime, and uses the Mediaguard video encryption system. The service has been vastly downsized due to capacity limitations in recent months, and is expected to be reduced further in 2007, as Top Up TV rolls out its new streaming subscription package, Setanta Sports. ^[6] Unlike Anytime, the streaming service will operate on any working digital set top box or conditional access module-based device, alongside a valid Top Up TV viewing card. The channels are carried alongside Freeview channels and categorised in the same way across the EPG.

The service was the company's original and flagship package, and launched on 31 March 2004. The channels it included were E4, UKTV Gold, TCM, UKTV Style, Discovery, Discovery Home and Leisure, UKTV Food, Cartoon Network, Boomerang and Bloomberg, with the additional Television X broadcasting for an extra fee of £9.99 per month.

On 27 May 2005, E4 left the Top Up TV roster in order to become a free-to-air channel. It went free-to-air for Big Brother 6 which would boost the channel's initial ratings. E4 was replaced on Top Up TV by British Eurosport which began broadcasting on the platform on June 1, 2005^[7]. Its hours were amended from E4's previous 4pm-4am slot to 2pm-11pm, although it continued to broadcast into early hours of the morning until the time that Top Up TV's capacity contract with Channel 4 ran out, when the channel was moved to another slot in which it had to end at 11pm.

Starting from 29 August 2006, the service was gradually reduced in order for Five to launch its two digital channels in replacement of two of Top Up TV's streams. The overnight hours of the channels were also reduced to allow downloads for the Top Up TV Anytime service. The service ceased to take on any new customers from late August, and is expected to be gradually phased out in favour of the new Anytime service, although Top Up TV's long term plans on the capacity has yet to be confirmed.

[edit] Channels

Top Up TV offers access to 4 channels, though only shows part of their schedules (in some cases as little as 2.5 hours per day). This service costs £7.99 per month. On some Top Up TV Forms subscribers have said that they have been offered the 4 channel service for £4.99.

On air time in brackets. Information as of 8 February 2007.

• 17 - UKTV Gold (16:00–01:00)
• 25 - Turner Classic Movies - (19:00–00:55)
• 26 - UKTV Style - (13:00–16:00)
• 33 - British Eurosport - (07:30–10:00)

[edit] Subscriber base

During the first month on air the service gained around 20,000 subscribers. Various industry speculation in early 2005 put Top Up TV's subscriber numbers at somewhere between 140,000 and 200,000 subscribers. However, there is speculation that these figures may have been hurt by E4 leaving the service in May 2005. In order to break even, Top Up TV originally aimed to obtain 250,000 subscribers by the end of March 2006, which was the second anniversary of its launch. Although, according to an article in the Mail on Sunday^[8] in June 2006, Top Up TV have reached their target of 250,000 subscribers, since Top Up TV has not released any official independently audited subscriber or churn figures it is unknown whether this figure is accurate, or whether it was achieved by the original target of March 2006.

[edit] Pricing

The "main package" had an initial "connection charge" of £20, together with a monthly subscription charge of £7.99. It is said to be aimed at those unable to have satellite or cable, and those viewers who want more than what Freeview offers but do not wish to pay £10–£40 per month to Sky Digital or cable operators.

In addition, the service in its entirety was also available on a pay-per-view basis between 2005 and 2006, known as Top Up TV Pay As You Go. This service allowed access to all eleven of the then-current Top Up TV channels for £2 per day by purchasing a Top Up TV Pay As You Go viewing card, which were available from various retailers and were pre-loaded with 24 days worth of viewing. Once purchased, the viewer would need to dial a telephone number in order to activate the viewing card for that particular day. Obviously, viewers needed to possess a set top box with a slot for a viewing card, or a conditional access module based device. The service replaced the former Xtraview pay-per-view service, and itself ceased broadcasting on 31 May 2006.

[edit] Changes to Service

During September 2006, a number of changes were made as Top Up prepared for the reasons stated above.

• On 3 September 2006, Toonami ceased broadcasting. This was followed by Bloomberg Television and the PPV adult channel Red Hot TV on 5 September 2006.

• On 12 September 2006 Top Up TV closed Boomerang and moved Discovery Real Time from Channel 28 to Channel 42. Programming from Toonami, Bloomberg, Boomerang and Discovery Real Time (as part of Discovery Lifestyle) will be made available on the Top Up TV Anytime service.

• On 19 September 2006 Discovery Channel changed broadcasting hours from 12pm-12am to 6-11pm, British Eurosport hours which was 1pm-12pm were cut by 6 hours now closing at 6pm and UKTV Gold cut to 4pm-1am. Then on 20 September 2006 UKTV Style was 6-10pm changed to 1pm-4pm.

• On 26 September 2006 UKTV Food closed and then on the 28 September 2006 Cartoon Network closed to reopen on 29 September 2006 broadcasting from 9-11am.

[edit] Pay per view services

Top Up TV currently offers one pay-per-view service. Its Picture Box Movie Service

[edit] Past

• Television X: Top Up TV offered Television X either on a £5.99 "pay-per-night" basis or for £9.99/month in addition to Top Up TV subscription.

• Setanta Sports: From 30 July 2005 to 11 February 2007, Setanta broadcast live pay-per-view Scottish Premier League games in conjunction with Top Up TV. The service used Top Up TV’s patented Xtraview technology. Initially this was only available in the Scottish and Grampian ITV regions, but has since expanded to serve the rest of the UK on 22 January 2006. Because of the use of the Xtraview encryption service, it did not require the use of a viewing card. The service was then removed in view of being replaced by the new Setanta Sports One Top Up TV subscription channel.^[9].

• Xtraview: This service ran between early 2005 and August 2005, where non-subscribers to Top Up TV could view a sample of the channels transmitted on the service on the Xtraview channel for £1 a day — the Top Up channels were transmitted in two hour slots throughout the day, and a release code could be obtained by telephoning Top Up TV. In August 2005 the service was discontinued, for a time afterwards the Prepay Top Up TV Pay As You Go service appeared offering viewing for £2 a day, which has now also been discontinued.

• Red Hot: Broadcast in addition to Television X, Red Hot was the sole pay-per-night adult channel on the platform. Like Television X, the service was priced at £5.99 each night in addition to a connection fee, however it did not offer a subscription package and it only broadcast from 11pm to 4am, where Television X continued until 5am. It closed on 5 September; the same date in which Television X adopted the pay-per-night method and lost its viewing card requirements.

[edit] Broadcast Capacity

Top Up TV now broadcasts all its channels on multiplex A, owned by SDN, originally a subsidiary of S4C, NTL, and UBM. On 27 April 2005 SDN was sold to ITV plc, which is reported to have its own plans for the multiplex in 2010 when contracts expire. Apart from TCM all of Top Up TV's capacity was rented from Five ^[10]. This had left Five without the capability of launching its own multi channels on Freeview, which BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have already done, in order to limit damage to their market position come digital switchover. On 6 July 2006, Five announced two new channels Five Life and Five US, to be broadcast on capacity currently used by Top Up TV channels^[11], under a £20m investment made in Top Up TV after Five dropped out of bidding for separate Freeview capacity on 18 November 2005. So as to effectively use their remaining space, Top Up TV announced the launch of Top Up TV Anytime, where programmes broadcast overnight will be stored on a new PVR^[2], ready to be played back on demand. Five US and Five Life were launched October 15 and 16 respectively.^[12], presumably preceded by Top Up TV Anytime.

[edit] Promotional services

[edit] Top Up TV Active

Top Up TV Active is an interactive channel which launched on 13 March 2006 on channel 107.

For a short time, until Quizworld's closure on 1 July 2006, the channel broadcast an audio version of Quizworld for most hours of the day, and overnight Cellcast-owned SmileTV broadcast Quizworld visually overnight on Freeview channel 37. Prior to Quizworld, Top Up TV Active ran another service known as "Say So", which had interactive features including the ability to put your message or picture on screen via SMS. At all times it had an on-screen advert for the Top Up TV service and how to subscribe.

The channel together with a low quality audio stream was termed as "Visual Radio" by Top Up TV and Cellcast.

Since the demise of Quizworld, no interactive features have been broadcast on the channel. As of September 2006, the channel is broadcasting a static MHEG slide, with no audio, which advertises the forthcoming Top Up TV Anytime service.

[edit] Top Up TV Promo

Top Up TV Promo is carried on channel 43 to promote services offered by Top Up TV. The channel broadcasts a looped promotional video, presented by Craig Doyle, advertising Top Up TV's new Anytime service alongside the subscription Setanta Sports service. The channel broadcasts free to air between 1:00 pm and 11:00 pm each day.

The channel is used in conjunction with MHEG generated Top Up TV Active on channel 107, which is a text-based information service available 24 hours a day, informing viewers how to subscribe, costs and other information.

[edit] Top Up TV Sampler

Top Up TV Sampler was a free to air channel broadcast by Top Up TV between December 2004 and February 2005 on channel 36, presented by Alice Beer. It advertised Top Up TV's then-current services, and was broadcast from 4:00 am to 11:00 pm daily. However, in February 2005, it was replaced by pay-per-view channel Xtraview, before itself being removed in August 2005 due to capacity contracts running out with terrestrial broadcaster Channel 4. Xtraview was itself replaced by encrypted Top Up TV channels previously broadcast on the slot owned by Channel 4.

[edit] Controversy

The BBC, a member of the Freeview Consortium, has accused Top Up TV of confusing customers by re-introducing pay-TV to DTT ^[13]. The Freeview consortium had intended to push DTT as an entirely free-to-air (FTA) option to avoid scaring off those who did not want to pay to watch TV. However, some suspect that the entirely-FTA proposition was a ploy by the BBC to safeguard the TV Licence, a suspicion confirmed by former BBC Director General Greg Dyke in his autobiography "Inside Story". Initially, the BBC tried to insist that all of Top Up TV's channels were put at the end of the EPG to avoid confusion. In response to this Top Up TV filed a complaint^[14] with Ofcom over the BBC’s apparent refusal to list its new subscription channels on the DTT electronic programme guide. Ofcom spoke to the BBC and the matter was resolved between the parties. [2]

The Red Hot channel, which uses Top Up TV's Xtraview system, found itself with threats of legal action for infringing the Freeview trademark when the channel's advertising initially claimed to be on Freeview and used the Freeview logo.

Top Up TV had also found itself on the wrong side of a number of Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Ofcom adjudications ^{[15] [16] [17] [18] [19]}, which have ruled that Top Up TV's advertising does not make the time-shared nature of the service clear enough. Their advertisements have been criticised in these ruling for appearing to indicate that 11 full channels are on offer when, in fact, the company only has broadcast access to 4.5 channel spaces and none of their channel offerings are broadcast full-time unlike their satellite and cable competitors.

The time sharing system had also lead to criticism as it has cut programmes off before they are finished - especially on British Eurosport, and to a lesser extent on UKTV Gold. In its argument to the Advertising Standards Authority (see above), Top Up TV claimed that its channel suppliers joining the service had given an undertaking to align their channel's schedules to fit around Top Up TV's time sharing but that still left a few programmes cut off part way through.

On May 18, 2006 Top Up TV Ltd, Top Up TV's holding company, changed its name to Minds 1 Limited and entered members voluntary liquidation ^[20]. According to Top Up TV the move is part of a restructuring programme, and will see the company demerged into three separate companies; Top Up TV 1 Limited, Top Up TV 2 Limited, and Top Up TV 3 Limited. The voluntary liquidation, combined with the initial heavy £7 million loss as reported in its own annual report, has resulted in increased media speculation regarding the viability and future of Top Up TV.

[edit] See also

• Freeview
• BT Vision

[edit] References

1. ^ Wilkes, Neil. "Five paid £20m for stake in Top Up", Digital Spy, 2005-12-10. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.
2. ^ ^{a b} "Top Up launches Anytime push VOD service", Digital Television Group, 2006-11-01. Retrieved on 2006-11-24.
3. ^ Welsh, James. "Top Up announces movies on demand service", Digital Spy, 2006-09-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.
4. ^ "Top Up confirms channel line-up for Anytime", Digital Television Group, 2006-09-01. Retrieved on 2006-09-06.
5. ^ Matthewman, Scott. "Top Up, tune in… buy a new box?", The Stage, 2006-06-05. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.
6. ^ "Setanta confirms plans for DTT channel", Digital Spy, 2006-05-25.
7. ^ Top Up TV (2005-05-31). British Eurosport joins Top Up TV. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.
8. ^ Rees, Jon. "Top Up TV Opens New Digital Door", Mail on Sunday, 2006-06-04.
9. ^ Top Up TV (January 2006). Live SPL games available to all Freeview viewers across UK on Setanta Sports. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.
10. ^ ITV plc (2005-04-27). ITV plc acquires SDN Limited. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.
11. ^ Five (2005-05-06). Five unveils two new channels. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.
12. ^ Five (25 August 2006). five launches five us and five life. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-09-06.
13. ^ Higham, Nick. "Freeview faces Top Up trouble", BBC News, 2004-02-16. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.
14. ^ "BBC won’t let Freeview EPG be topped up", Broadband TV News. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.
15. ^ Advertising Standards Authority (2006-03-01) Broadcast Advertising Adjudications 1 March 2006. Retrieved on 2006-11-24.
16. ^ Advertising Standards Authority (2005-09-07) Broadcast Advertising Adjudications 7 September 2005. Retrieved on 2006-11-24.
17. ^ Advertising Standards Authority (2005-03-02) Broadcast Advertising Adjudications 2 March 2005. Retrieved on 2006-11-24.
18. ^ Advertising Standards Authority (2005-01-19) Non-Broadcast Adjudication Details. Retrieved on 2006-11-24.
19. ^ Ofcom (2004-07-05) Advertising complaints bulletin. Issue A13. Retrieved on 2006-11-24.
20. ^ Tryhorn, Chris. "Top Up TV undergoes restructuring", The Guardian, 2006-05-31. Retrieved on 2006-11-23.

[edit] External links

• Top Up TV
• Top Up TV Anytime Yahoo Group
• FrequencyCast's Top Up TV Anytime news page
• Digital Spy - TopupTV Forum (With comments from TopUp Engineers)
• PictureBox
• Kafka's World Top Up TV Forum' with input from Senior TUTV Engineers - Kieron Edwards and Simon Dore PLUS a Comprehensive Knowledge Base