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This week sees the start of a new comedy series with local radio as it’s theme.
“FM” stars Chris O’Dowd from The IT Crowd. He plays on-air presenter Lindsay Carol, star of Skin FM, a London Indie station. Other characters include rival presenters, the station’s producer, plus the token dizzy receptionist and techy Station Engineer.
Hopefully one to watch – Catch “FM” from Wednesday the 25th February on ITV2.
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OK… Now we’ve seen everything. The Discovery channel, famous for it’s world-changing documetaries, thought provoking nature shows, and other educational content, is launching something a little bit special next month…
Discovery Shed.
Yes, you read it right, and no, it’s too early for April Fools. Apparently this new TV channel will be “the place for men who like good old practical activities to escape to”, and it will cover manly stuff like DIY, construction, bikes and cars.
The channel for every man and his shed removes the padlock from its wooden door on the 20th of March 2009.
Oh, and if you’re into all things shed-related, check out shedblog.co.uk for all your shed needs and support.
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Sky is set to replace around 90,000 Sky+ HD set-top box after problems with internal cabling were uncovered. The problem affects early HD boxes manufactured by Pace.
To see if yours is affected, go to Services, System Setup, System details and check the version number. Pace boxes with version numbers: 9F3001, 9F3002, 9F3003 and 9F3004 are affected – according to Sky, around 1 in 10 of the boxes out there.
Sky stress that there’s not a safety fault, and boxes can continue to be used until Sky swaps it out for you. The process of replacing all 90,000 boxes may take up to three months, and Sky will compensate affected users with three months’ free subscription to Sky’s HD pack.
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Following on from Show 36 at the start of February, Carl and Pete bring you a FrequencyCast update.
In this Update, we look at the following: Sky is 20 years old, Project Kangaroo is canned, and BT Vision HD news. Plus a look at the emails we received after the controversial show 36, our media streaming special.
Download from our FrequencyCast Latest page
Share, enjoy, and rate us on iTunes
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We’ve been releasing FrequencyCast, the UK TV and Tech podcast, since 2006, and we’ve been hoping to make it into the list of Top Ten shows since we started.
For the top ten, we rely on iTunes, which is the leading podcast distribution method. We’re listed in the ‘Tech News’ category, and we see our position in the 100 hop up and down. Today, we find we’re the closest we’ve been to the Top Ten – Yes, we’re number 11 in the Tech News podcast category – or at least we were today.
So tantalisingly close!
Help us out by spreading the word about FrequencyCast to your friends, add us to your Facebook profile, or mentioning us online… and maybe be can crawl into the Top 10.
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Proposed Video-on-Demand service, codenamed Project Kangaroo, has been blocked from launching in the UK by the Competition Commission.
Kangaroo was a joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 to launch a huge back-catalogue of their shows on demand, meaning that users could get content in one place, without the need for separate applications like iPlayer, ITV netplayer and the 4oD player.
This is bad news for UK TV viewers hoping for a one-stop shop for online content, but good news for the likes of BT Vision and Virgin, offering their own libraries of on-demand services.
Hopefully, with 4oD and BBC recently announcing upgrades to their on-demand services, we’ll be in for some Kangaroo alternatives in the near future.
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This month marks the 20th anniversary of satellite broadcasting the UK. Rupert Murdoch’s Sky television service started on 5 February 1989.
At launch, just 4 channels were available, with that number now over 500.
Sky merged with rival BSB (remember the squarial?) in 1990, and now has over 9 million customers in the UK
Over the years, Sky’s innovated with services like Sky+, and now is pushing its Sky HD service – over 30 HD channels with the price of the HD box slashed to £49.
Sky’s has its share of setbacks too, most recently with the failed attempt to get its pay service available alongside Freeview, with the Sky Picnic offering – and with more on-demand services such as Virgin and BT Vision getting consumer attention, Sky must not be looking to increase its Internet and on-demand offering.
Still, Sky’s got the cash to pay out £1.6 billion for Premier League football rights for the next few years, and with over 9 million viewers, it must be doing something right…
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Show 36 of FrequencyCast, the UK’s TV and Tech podcast, has just been released.
In our regular online radio show, we discuss all that’s new with digital TV and technology. Here’s what we cover in this show:
You can download Show 36 direct to your MP3 player or listen online at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html. If you have an iPod or iPhone, get shows faster by signing up via iTunes.
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