France’s 24 hour news channel is now an official part of the Freely service, joining the growing number of channels available without putting a Freely device in hybrid mode.
- France 24 English on Freely 306
- Other France 24 feeds on channel 556 on some Freely devices
Global Distribution Services has announced the launch of France 24’s live English-language news service on Freely channel 306, further expanding the broadcaster’s distribution across the UK television landscape.
The service joins BBC News, BBC Parliament, Sky News, GB News and CNN Headlines in the news section of Freely’s TV guide. The service is streamed in HD quality where broadband connectivity allows.
France 24 English joins the growing number of TV channels streaming via Freely, without needing a terrestrial backstop. At launch, Freely devices were shipped with both TV aerial socket and broadband connectivity so that viewers could receive the full range of channels, also known as hybrid mode. More recent devices are available that dispense of the TV aerial socket altogether.
Isn’t France 24 already on Freely?
For viewers with a Freely device connected to both aerial and broadband (hybrid mode), France 24 is also available on channel 556. That copy, which contains access to France 24’s different language streams remains in addition to France 24 English now streaming on channel 306.
For streaming-only Freely users, France 24 English is a new channel to your line-up.
The version on channel 556 (which is a copy of Freeview channel 255) relies on a now increasingly out-dated hybrid method of streaming TV channels. This is something that Freely’s owners (Everyone TV) and Ofcom are subtly trying to discourage, not least because it opened up a loophole allowing channels to circumvent Ofcom regulation. On launching Freely, Everyone TV allocated these services slots right at the end of the list of TV channels.
Global Distribution Services is the company behind many of the recent additions to Freeview’s streaming channel line-up, found beyond channel 251 on the Freeview EPG. These are duplicated on Freely devices (in hybrid mode) beyond channel 550.
Further news channels are expected to follow France 24’s step.
By: Marc Thornham | Image: France 24