Channel 4 is about to announce that it has secured distribution deals for its digital film service with both BSkyB and British Digital Broadcasting (BDB) – now operating under the name of ONDigital (see BDB Brands DTT Service As ON-digital).
C4 has been in discussion with both groups for some time regarding its plans for a cult and independent digital film channel (see Channel 4 Examines Options For Digital Film Channel). The service, to be called Film Four, is hoping to become a significant player in British cinema.
It is expected that the channel will screen several movies each evening during a 12 hour broadcast. There is also to be film-related programming around the films themselves.
Film Four will be wholly owned and managed by Channel 4 but will be distributed on Sky via both its analogue and digital services, and on digital terrestrial television through ONDigital.
In the race to snap up digital subscribers Sky yesterday announced that it plans to install satellite systems for free, saving customers around £100. However, following this announcement BSkyB’s shares dropped by just under 9% from 474p to 432p yesterday.
ONDigital is promoting its service by the fact that it does not require a dish, something which BDB research finds to be unattractive to most customers , and by the fact that its set-top boxes are portable (see BDB Set-Top Technology To Be Portable).
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