Freesat from Sky (FsfS) was a British satellite television service from

Sky UK Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

. It offered over 240

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the FTA Receiver, appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring ...

(FTA) channels in its

EPG Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for ...

.List of Free To Air channels broadcast from the UK
/ref> This is a greater number than its competitors,

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Digital UK. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008. Free ...

, which has 200+, and

Freeview Freeview may refer to: * Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia * Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), ...

, which has 70+. It also had up to six HD channels and used to have

Sky Active Sky Active was the brand name for interactive features on Sky Digital and was available in the UK and Ireland. It enabled a viewer to interact with TV content, respond to an advertisement or access internet-based services. History and techn ...

interactive data service. Sky was not actively promoting the service (in favour of its subscription TV offering) and the service has quietly been discontinued for new customers as of 2021.

Service reach

, the number of households with free-to-view satellite television is estimated by

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

to be 2.045 million, or 8.0% of households with television. This figure includes households with the BBC/ITV Freesat, Freesat from Sky, and churned Sky subscribers who kept their Sky

Digibox The Digibox is a device marketed by Sky UK in the UK and Ireland to enable home users to receive digital satellite television broadcasts (satellite receiver) from the Astra satellites at 28.2° east. An Internet service was also available ...

es to access free-to-view channels.

Reception equipment

This service requires use of the proprietary SkyHD or SD

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

, to receive the FTA channels. Sky's boxes use the proprietary OpenTV EPG for interactive television services. The boxes are limited in some regards when compared to other satellite receivers, such as digital audio, video outputs, and the lack of the ability to use a dish motor and scan for channels not carried on the EPG. They also feature an EPG that contains all Sky channels, including pay-TV services which are not available to non-subscription viewers. Sky currently include a SkyHD Digibox with new ''FsfS'' installations. These boxes receive a selection of standard definition and HD channels, but do not record. Those who wish to have Sky+ functionality (recording & time-shifting) must buy their own box, requiring Sky to 'pair' their existing viewing card to the new box. In addition, use of the recording facilities of these PVRs also requires an ongoing monthly fee.

Viewing card

''Freesat from Sky'' differentiates itself from

not just by its use of Sky equipment but by offering both

and

free-to-view Free-to-view (FTV) is a term used for audiovisual transmissions that are provided free without any form of continual subscription . It differs from free-to-air (FTA) in that the program is encrypted. Free-to-view vs. free-to-air The free-to-view ...

channels. A card is included with installation or can be purchased direct from Sky. For security reasons the viewing cards are deactivated from time to time and reception of the encrypted free-to-view channels disabled. This requires the user to purchase a new viewing card at the current standard charge. Sky viewing cards used to access subscription services revert to acting as ''FsfS'' viewing cards upon cancellation of the subscription. The viewing card also ensures the correct region for regionalised services for

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

and S4C.

Extra channels

The following is a list of free-to-view channels on the ''FsfS'' platform. A viewing card is required to watch them. None of these channels are available on

. BT broadband subscribers can also receive BT Sport using a ''FsfS'' viewing card. * Local TV (satellite version with various local news. Simulcasts

CBS Reality CBS Reality is a European television channel broadcast in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. History CBS Reality was launched as Reality TV on 1 December 1999 as a joint-venture between UPCtv and Zone Vision. In 2005, Liberty Global, owner of ...

at other times.) * London Live (available in London (region) only) * STV HD (North (Aberdeen), North (Dundee/Tayside) and Central East (Edinburgh) regions. The Central West HD and all SD region are free-to-air)

Other features

* The viewing card can be used to receive the correct region on the main channel number for the following services: **

/ STV / UTV **

/ S4C

Competition

''Freesat from Sky'' (FsfS) is a competitor to the

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...