- News and opinion channel in final stage of becoming an online-only service, but could it be quietly dropped altogether in the future?
As planned, TalkTV was removed from Sky satellite, Sky stream and Virgin Media early on Wednesday. Freesat messed up the change, with some viewers seeing a blank screen.
The news and opinion channel retreated from cable and satellite platforms on Wednesday morning.
Anyone selecting TalkTV from the Virgin Media O2 channel list on Wednesday will have seen an information slate offering alternative options for viewers.
Meanwhile on Sky, TalkTV was completely removed from the channel list at just after 10am.
The satellite feed of the channel, broadcast via the Astra 2E satellite, was terminated altogether shortly after that.
A blunder at Freesat meant that the channel was not removed from its Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) before TalkTV’s satellite signal was cut off.
That meant Freesat users could still technically select TalkTV from the channel list, but were met with a blank screen or error message, implying there was a problem with receiving the channel.
Freeview feed staggered on
Ironically on Freeview, the platform which first confirmed via its electronic listings that TalkTV had brought forward its online shift, originally planned for summer, the channel continued to be available.
Freeview’s listings had been amended in the past few days to carry the channel’s schedule beyond 30th April. Originally Freeview had flagged the channel would no longer be available from this morning.
In preparation for the online shift, since last Wednesday, the channel has been visible via two slots on Freeview’s channel list.
- Once on channel 237 as a traditional broadcast channel carried over the airwaves…
- and again on channel 294, as a streaming channel available on connected TVs. This copy of the channel is in HD quality.
Additionally, on channel 294, TalkTV has been relabelled “Talk”, reflecting the service’s official new name.
TalkTV had been expected to drop off channel 237 today in line with the original listings data and coinciding with the channel being pulled from other platforms. However RXTV understands the current dual-broadcast arrangement, which has made the channel an unexpected Freeview exclusive in terms of non-online TV platforms, is ‘time limited’.
[Update: ‘time limited’ proved to be an extra 24 hours. Viewers checking in to channel 237 are directed to the streaming service on 294]
Effectively, the channel is nothing more than the old TalkRadio TV stream, which had been broadcast online before TalkTV launched.
The channel is still running under its old label of TalkTV on Samsung TV Plus, available on Samsung smart TVs and mobiles.
Could the channel quietly disappear in the future?
Opinion • Marc Thornham
Out of sight, out of mind. That might be the mantra for News UK, operators of Talk (TV). After building up huge losses over the past few years, News UK has brought forward the channel’s shift online.
Media analysts quoted in The Guardian (which reported the channel would close and move online last Monday, underlining a messy transition) suggest the online shift paves the way for what’s left of the channel to disappear altogether.
Is that a reasonable assumption? As the unpopular BBC News channel simulcast of Nicky Campbell’s Radio 5 Live morning phone-in showed, simply adding a TV camera to a radio programme isn’t necessarily what viewers want. And that is all that’s left of the channel now known simply as ‘Talk’.
In an online world, clips of key interviews and stormy exchanges with presenters from TalkRadio, shared across social media and YouTube will reach more users than a live visual radio stream. That’s the lesson learned from the likes of LBC and Times Radio, which have been successfully attracting subscribers to their content.
Image above: Screenshot of the (almost) online-only Talk (TV).