BBC to sublease Freeview streams

The BBC has revealed plans to sublease its two "idle" Freeview streams to ensure that the capacity is fully used as the digital switchover moves towards completion.

The corporation today removed two of its three interactive streams from digital terrestrial television, meaning that BBC News Multiscreen and the Red Button interactive channel ceased being used.

The freed-up capacity will be used for making BBC HD available on DTT in line with the launch schedule for the new Freeview HD service.

In the meantime, a competitive tender process was launched yesterday for subleasing the available streams to get maximum value from capacity.

However, any interested parties will only be able to launch short-term channel propositions on Freeview as the capacity will be re-allocated as the switchover moves forward.

Speaking to Broadcast, BBC chief operating officer Caroline Thomson said: "The BBC has identified an opportunity to release temporary spare spectrum capacity to any interested companies that wish to launch new services for audiences in the UK.

"Not only does this mean that we are ensuring that spectrum is used as efficiently as possible but it will also deliver better value for money for licence fee payers."

A BBC spokesman added: "We have to switch these services off anyway so rather than having them sit idle, we are making them available for other broadcasters to launch new channels in, in the short-term."