Samsung smart TV owners in the UK can enjoy a revised line-up of channels on TV Plus, in a major change that has rolled out this month.
- Upgrade has reorganised services, boosting UK favourites.
- Services including Sky News, Challenge and GREAT! movies have new positions in the Samsung TV Plus channel list.
- As part of the change, Samsung TV Plus channels are now divided into different genres.
TV manufacturing giant Samsung has completed the rollout of an update to its channel guide for users of its free streaming TV service, built in to all new smart TVs and a selection of Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
The changes mean almost every channel on TV Plus has been assigned a new channel number. And numerous channels now sit under different genres.
The move seeks to tidy up the channel list after the number of services doubled in recent years.
New genres
TV Plus is now divided into the following genres:
- News
- Entertainment
- Reality
- Sport
- Crime
- Kids
- Movies
- TV Series
- Documentaries
- Nature
- Food & Travel
What’s changed?
The new ‘Reality’, ‘Crime’ and ‘Documentaries’ genres absorb channels previously filed in ‘Factual’, ‘Lifestyle’ or ‘Entertainment’. A small number of travel channels, previously under ‘Lifestyle’ have moved to the new Food & Travel genre, which in turn replaces the old ‘Food & Drink’
Meanwhile, ‘Natural History’ is replaced by ‘Nature’. ‘Extreme Sport’ and ‘Motoring’ genres are axed, with channels being assigned one of the new genres.
The old Drama genre, which included Sky Mix, is now replaced by ‘TV Series’.
Sony One Faves and Sony One Thriller TV move out of ‘Entertainment’. Instead, they can be found in ‘TV Series’.
New channel numbers
The reordering of services into new genres has resulted in a major change to the channel list.
While Samsung TV Plus can be navigated without channel numbers, the channel numbers are useful 4-digit shortcodes for smart TV users wanting to access their favourite services in just four button presses on a numeric remote control.
For example, Sky News has moved from channel 4305 to 4551.
Challenge has moved from 4124 to 4106.
A full list of Samsung TV Plus channel numbers
Some channels are ‘promoted’. Basically, this means they are assigned a top 10 channel number between 4000-4010, away from other channels in their genre.
Following the Samsung TV Plus change, ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Reality’ channel numbers are interwoven, with reality channels sandwiched between the beginning and the rest of the entertainment channels, if you’re browsing through TV Plus using the channel up/down buttons.
UK favourites boosted
Among the flood of niche and US-based streaming channels on Samsung TV Plus, the new channel order moves some UK services up the pecking order.
For example, the news and opinion channel GB News, cultural channel Sky Arts, children’s channel Tiny POP and movie channel GREAT! movies all move up in their respective genres to more prominent positions. Additionally, two offshoots from Channel 5 (5 Cops and 5 Exploring Britain) head the new ‘Documentaries’ genre.
Conversely, services like business channel CNBC (in News) or football channel FIFA+ (in Sports) fall down the list.
As before, the versions of GREAT! movies and GREAT! romance on TV Plus are different from the traditional broadcast versions of the channel on Freeview, Sky and Virgin Media.
Samsung TV Plus channels appear above channel 4000 on the channel list or via the TV Plus app. However, Samsung TV models that support Freesat may need to be taken out of Freesat mode for TV Plus to work. A minimum broadband speed of 10Mbps is recommended. Many channels will stream in HD, subject to network quality.
By: Marc Thornham | Image: Samsung