Want Sky Digital, but don’t fancy shelling out on a subscription? We’ve found a 10% off offer on Sky’s Sky Pay Once, Watch Forever service, which gets you installation of a dish, with a set top box. Normal price is a one-off £75 - but get 10% off when using voucher code Use voucher code SKY10 at the dixons.co.uk checkout.

Valid until the end of May 2008

A new channel is coming to Freeview. “National Lottery Xtra” has appeared in the Freeview channel lineup, on Channel 45. But is it actually a channel? It seems that National Lottery Xtra will broadcast for one hour a day, from  08:45 to 09:45, seven days a week.

Does this really consistitute a TV channel? To us, that sounds like a “TV programme” not a “TV channel”. Presumably, the channel’s entry in the Programme Guide will show 23 hours of nothing, then a one hour show… and presumably Freeview will count this “programme” as a channel, upping the number of channels on their platform. At least it’s not taking up much space on the system, as it appears to be using the dead time where the channels Gems TV and Film4 aren’t broadcasting.

A quick mention for the TVonics MFR-200, as mentioned by a couple of our listeners. This is a tiny Freeview box that’s designed for tellies that don’t have a SCART socket.

This is an ultra-small Freeview receiver that has an RF modulator (in English - it works with TV sets that don’t have a SCART socket). It has a remote control, an 8-day Electronic Programme Guide and is energy efficient (1.5 watts).

The TVonics MFR-200 is available for under £40 from Argos online and Homebase

If you’re living in Birmingham or parts of the West Midlands, you may find that any old onDigital/itvDigital boxes you’re using will stop working from the 3rd of March 2008 Work on the Sutton Coldfield transmitter means that some early pre-Freeview boxes won’t. According to the announcement at www.freeview.co.uk, boxes affected include: Daewoo DS608P, LabgearDTT100, Triax DVB2000T, Daewoo SV900 and Bush IDVCR01.

As we reported in Show 19 of our podcast, BBC National radio stations Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio 4 are moving from Freeview Multiplex A to Multiplex B today (3rd October 2007) - This means that you’ll need to rescan the channels on your Freeview receiver to continue to get these channels.

UKTV G2 is relaunching in mid-October… and will be coming to Freeview. The channel name? Errr… “Dave”

Apparently, this new name is based on the idea that “everyone has a mate called Dave”. The channel will be on Sky and Virgin, and will replace UKTV Bright Ideas on Freeview. The channel will aim at 16-35 year old men.

We’re seeing reports from site visitors and show listeners reporting problems with missing channels such as ITV2, ITV3 and the channel 4 channels on Freeview. Here’s what’s happened…

Channel 4 started running a “+1 service” on Freeview Channel 13 in August. This has meant a reshuffle of channel numbers on Freeview Multiplex 2 (the multiplex carrying the ITV and Channel 4 channels). It seems that some people have seen a loss of ITV2/ITV3 as a result of this reshuffle. The advice is to perform a full re-scan of channels on your Freeview receiver (from your on-screen menu). This should rebuild your channel list, and get Channel 4+1 onto Channel 13, and the ITV channels back in place.

Virgin Media has announced that it will launch a new channel, called Virgin 1, on Freeview later in 2007. This new channel will show drama, comedy and factual programming,and is likely to replace the channel FTN.

Sky’s announced that from July 1st, they’ll be scrapping the £10 a month charge for Sky+. Some customers on certain packages already had this waived, but from July - all 2 million Sky+ users will get to use this top PVR for free as long as they stay subscribed to Sky.