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Top Up TV was a
pay TV Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...
service in the United Kingdom which launched in March 2004, operating on the digital terrestrial television platform. The aim of the service was to "top up"
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), a ...
customers by providing additional content and services through encrypted TV channels unavailable to other viewers. The service offered a variety of content from various providers through 'TV Favourites', and old and low-budget movies from
NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primar ...
through PictureBox Movies, all of which could be viewed
on demand On-demand or on demand may refer to: Manufacturing * Build-on-demand * Just-in-time manufacturing, a methodology for production * Print on demand, printing technology and business process in which new copies of a document are not printed until an ...
. Top Up TV formerly offered live premium sports channels including
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
,
Sky Sports 1 Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It h ...
and
Sky Sports 2 Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. I ...
. The service could be received by equipment having a built-in card slot: a
DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Feb ...
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 s ...
, a
recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
or an integrated television receiver. As of July 2013, there were approximately 200,000 subscribers. In late 2013, Top Up TV ceased broadcasting and sold its subscriber business to Sky.


History

The company was founded by two former
BSkyB 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 ...
executives, David Chance and Ian West. The management team consisted of Chance as chairman and
Nick Markham Nicholas Francis Markham, Baron Markham, (born 13 February 1968) is chair of London & Continental Railways. He is the co-founder of COVID-19 testing company Cignpost Diagnostics & ExpressTest, a non-executive director of Inchora Limited, and the ...
as chief executive officer. Top Up TV was 20% owned by Channel 5 and restructured during 2006, with the original company liquidated under Members Voluntary Liquidation under the name Minds1. The owner of
Access Industries Access Industries, Inc. is an American privately held multinational industrial group. It was founded in 1986 by businessman Leonard "Len" Blavatnik, who is also its chairman. Access's industrial focus is in four areas: natural resources and c ...
,
Len Blavatnik Sir Leonard Valentinovich Blavatnik, russian: Леонид Валентинович Блаватник, Leonid Valentinovich Blavatnik (born June 14, 1957) is a Ukraine-born American-British business magnate and philanthropist. As of March 202 ...
, is said to have purchased a 70% stake in January 2007. According to the Registre de Commerce et des Sociétés of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the accounts lodged by Top Up TV Europe S.a.r.l. in 2010 indicated costs of €38 million, debts of €23 million and ongoing losses of €21 million.


2004–06: Launch and early years

Top Up TV, as ''Newincco 166 Ltd'', bid for the
multiplex Multiplex may refer to: * Multiplex (automobile), a former American car make * Multiplex (comics), a DC comic book supervillain * Multiplex (company), a global contracting and development company * Multiplex (assay), a biological assay which measu ...
D licence on the DTT service in 2002 in a joint application with Carlton,
Granada Granada (,, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the c ...
and
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
, trading as the Digital Terrestrial Alliance (DTA). The company were prepared to offer a "viable" and "lite-pay" service, which would have provided a large number of
free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...
channels and a few pay-TV ones. The bid was unsuccessful, and the licence was instead awarded to the BBC, BSkyB and
Crown Castle Crown Castle is a real estate investment trust and provider of shared communications infrastructure in the United States. Its network includes over 40,000 cell towers approximately 85,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solu ...
, which later became National Grid Wireless. After unsuccessful multiplex bid, Top Up TV turned to public service broadcasters Channel 5 and
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
to gain capacity on the platform. On multiplex A, Top Up TV were granted four long-term streams (one of which previously hosted
TV Travel Shop TV Travel Shop was a British television channel that sold holidays. It launched in April 1998, primarily on satellite and cable, broadcasting between 6am and 5pm, sharing space with Challenge. In 1999, the channel began broadcasting 24 hours a ...
), and on multiplex 2, were granted one short-term stream from Channel 4. They came up with a time-shared system which allowed 10 pay-TV channels to be broadcast in the space of five television streams, two of which were allotted "empty" space, which later became
ABC1 ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship ABC Television network. The headquarters of the ABC TV channel an ...
and Teachers' TV. The sixth stream was used as a temporary measure (as of the short-term contract with Channel 4), and hosted pay-per-view channels
Xtraview Xtraview was a British pay-per-view television channel run by Top Up TV. It replaced Top Up TV Sampler, a promotional channel showing Top Up TV's latest offers presented by Alice Beer. Xtraview showed a selection of programs from the Top Up T ...
and Red Hot. Top Up TV focused less on the premium services which had been prominent on
ITV Digital ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners o ...
prior to 2002. By 2005, eleven channels were available on the service but were all timeshared. Overnight this dropped to as few as two channels (from the main package), in order to make space for premium
adult entertainment The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related ...
channels. From its launch in 2004, a promotional video presented by Alice Beer ran on the channel placeholders and the Top Up TV Sampler channel. From March 2004, Top Up TV provided a package of 10 timeshared TV channels which was joined by an eleventh in 2005:
UKTV Gold Gold is a British pay television channel from the UKTV network that was launched in late 1992 as UK Gold before it was rebranded UKTV Gold in 2004. In 2008, it was split into current flagship channel Gold and miscellaneous channel, W (UK TV chan ...
,
UKTV Style HGTV (formerly Home) is a British free-to-air television channel interior home and garden-orientated lifestyle television channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, currently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel originally ...
,
UKTV Food Good Food was a cookery channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, latterly as part of the Discovery, Inc. network of channels. The channel originally launched on 5 November 2001 and relaunched in its final format on 22 June 2009 ...
,
Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
, Discovery Home & Leisure, TCM, E4,
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ma ...
,
Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
and
Boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning b ...
. On 27 May 2005, E4 left Top Up TV to become a free-to-air channel and was replaced by
British Eurosport Eurosport 1 is a French television sports network channel which is a division of Eurosport and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Discovery took a 20% minority interest share in December 2012, and became majority shareholder in the Eurospo ...
which began broadcasting on the platform on 1 June 2005.
Toonami Toonami ( ) is an American late night television programming block that primarily broadcasts Japanese animation and occasionally American action animation. It was created by Sean Akins and Jason DeMarco and produced by Williams Street, a divis ...
also joined the line-up. Discovery Home & Leisure was rebranded Discovery Real Time. In its first year of operation, the company made losses of £7 million. The original service broke even at 250,000 subscribers (according to some sources) around the Time Top Up TV Anytime was announced. This figure fell significantly short of the claimed potential subscriber numbers of 650,000 as set out in the original Freeview Plus proposal document, due to the differing market in 2004 and increasing competition from Sky (who had acquired ITV Digital's customer details) and cable TV companies. Top Up TV provided additional services such as
Xtraview Xtraview was a British pay-per-view television channel run by Top Up TV. It replaced Top Up TV Sampler, a promotional channel showing Top Up TV's latest offers presented by Alice Beer. Xtraview showed a selection of programs from the Top Up T ...
which offered Top Up TV channels on a per-day basis, but closed down after Channel 4 wanted the stream back for its own use. This was replaced for a time by Top Up TV Pay As You Go. Top Up TV Active was an interactive advertising service that replaced the off-air MHEG screens on channel 107; it also featured an audio version of QuizWorld. In August 2005,
Setanta Sports Setanta Sports is a sports television company based in Dublin, Ireland broadcasting throughout select Eurasian. The company was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events to international audiences. The company previo ...
broadcast live pay-per-view
Scottish Premier League The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the top level league competition for professional football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football' ...
matches in conjunction with Top Up TV, using Top Up TV's Xtraview technology. Originally this was only available to viewers in Scotland, but was made available nationwide in early 2006. By 9 February 2007, all but two live channels on the service had been replaced with the push video-on-demand service, as the original package was slowly phased out. However, premium sports could still be accessed on a live basis. The Xtraview access control system was still in use for
TelevisionX Television X (TVX) is a series of Pornography, adult pay-per-view television channels in the United Kingdom owned by MG Global Entertainment (Europe) Limited. Until 2020, it was owned by Portland TV which was a subsidiary of Richard Desmond's p ...
.


2006–13: On-demand and premium sports

On 30 August 2006, Top Up TV announced that it was to launch a new service known as Top Up TV Anytime. The new service required a Top Up TV Anytime DTR, effectively a digital terrestrial television recorder, which allowed access to on-demand and encrypted channels. The original service, following Anytime's launch, was later mostly phased out, being reduced to two live non-sport channels,
Gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
and
Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...
. Existing channels of the original service at launch closed down or had their hours reduced before being phased out completely. These channels, along with new channels such as
Living Living or The Living may refer to: Common meanings *Life, a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms ** Living species, one that is not extinct *Personal life, the course of an individual human's life * ...
and
Disney Channel Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...
, joined the new service and began offering content on an on-demand basis. PictureBox Movies launched as a premium movies add-on in October 2006. Also in 2006,
Inview Technology Inview Technology (Inview Technology Ltd or simply Inview) is a UK-based digital TV software company. It specialises in advanced EPGs, interactive broadcast, IP services and solutions for Pay-TV and analogue switch off markets. Their OTT TV ...
launched the world's first push-VOD service for Top Up TV. On 11 February 2007, Top Up TV's per-per-view Scottish Premier League matches were discontinued, and the
Setanta Sports Setanta Sports is a sports television company based in Dublin, Ireland broadcasting throughout select Eurasian. The company was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events to international audiences. The company previo ...
channel was made available on Top Up TV by a separate subscription. The Setanta Sports channel ceased broadcasting in June 2009 after the company went bust. In 2009, Top Up TV Anytime was rebranded into TV Favourites, spawning PictureBox and the newly launched ESPN into viewing packs available as part of TV Favourites or available separately. Monday 2 August 2010 saw Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 launch through Top Up TV. Originally, four streams were used to distribute the TV Favourites service, but the fourth stream was taken off air on 11 January 2010. The third stream was pulled from air roughly ten months later. The first stream under the name of "Top Up TV Anytime 1" in the EPG timeshared with ESPN, and the second stream under the name of "Top Up TV Anytime 3" in the EPG timeshared with Home, Gold, and Television X.


2013: Loss of sports and closure

In June 2013, following the acquisition of ESPN by
BT Sport BT Sport is a group of broadcasting of sports events, pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, Warner Bros. Dis ...
and the announcement of the removal of Sky Sports 1 & 2 from the Digital Terrestrial Television ( DTT) network by BT, Top Up TV began sending letters to their customers stating that their premium sports package(s) would be discontinued. Sky Sports 1 & 2 were removed on 1 July, and ESPN on 1 August. In September, Top Up TV sent customers on the TV Favourites and PictureBox packages letters informing them that the service would cease broadcasting on 31 October 2013 and that all remaining subscriptions will cease automatically. TUTV advised that the hardware will continue to work as a Freeview decoder. This brought the period of uncertainty about TUTV's future to an end. On 31 October, Top Up TV placed a notice on their website stating that they had ceased broadcasting. The company sold their subscriber business to Sky where new subscribers to Sky could get up to 50% off for a year if they went through Top Up TV. Until June 2015, the company continued to run conditional access to the Freeview platform which BT used to broadcast BT Sports 1 and 2.


Services


TV Favourites

Launched in December 2006 as Top Up TV Anytime, the service offered
video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...
content from many channels. In 2009, Top Up TV Anytime was rebranded as TV Favourites, as Top Up TV no longer needed the Anytime brand to differentiate its on-demand service from its previous linear service. The service was only accessible through a Top Up TV DVB-T DVR set top box. Content was available by pressing the Top Up TV button on the remote whilst watching a TV channel or perusing the EPG. Over time, channels like
Living Living or The Living may refer to: Common meanings *Life, a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms ** Living species, one that is not extinct *Personal life, the course of an individual human's life * ...
and
Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...
were phased out, replaced by programmes from the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
,
Warner Bros. Television Warner Bros. Television Studios (operating under the name Warner Bros. Television; formerly known as Warner Bros. Television Division) is an American television production and distribution studio of the Warner Bros. Television Group division of ...
and
The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
. The channel icons displayed on the Top Up TV EPG changed from being the logo of their respective channel in favour of a uniform genre list. Providers that were available at the time were: Comedy/Drama *
Gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
* United States drama from ABC Factual * Crime & Investigation Network *
History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
*
Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...


PictureBox

PictureBox was a movies service in which around 28 old and low-budget movies were downloaded to the subscriber's Top Up TV
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), a ...
box every night for a monthly fee. Movies offered were from the
NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primar ...
library. Seven films were available at any one time, with titles being refreshed nightly. The service launched in October 2006 and was the first premium add-on available to Top Up TV customers. Top Up TV was the first platform in the world to host the service along with its TV programmes spin-off, TV Box.


Discontinued channels and services

Entertainment, factual and comedy *
Animal Planet Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1, 1996, the network is primarily dev ...
– On-demand content *
MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
– On-demand content * Paramount Comedy – On-demand content *
Syfy Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Lau ...
– On-demand content *Life and Times – On-demand content *
Hallmark Channel The Hallmark Channel is an American television channel owned by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., which in turn is owned by Hallmark Cards, Inc. The channel's programming is primarily targeted at families, and features a mix of television movies and ...
– On-demand content *
Living Living or The Living may refer to: Common meanings *Life, a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms ** Living species, one that is not extinct *Personal life, the course of an individual human's life * ...
– On-demand content *
Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
– Original channel and on-demand content *
Discovery Real Time Discovery Real Time was a British television channel owned by Discovery Networks UK focused on educational and learning content. History It was originally launched on 9 March 1992 as The Learning Channel, United Kingdom's version of the Ameri ...
– Original channel and on-demand content * BBC Programmes – On-demand content *
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
– On-demand content *
Warner TV Warner TV is a pay television channel mainly airing in Latin America, Europe, parts of South Asia and Southeast Asia, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its International unit that focuses on airing American series and films. Most ...
– On-demand content * TV Box (NBCUniversal) *
National Geographic Channel (UK) National Geographic is a British pay television channel that features documentaries produced by the National Geographic Society. It features some programming similar to that on the Discovery Channel such as nature and science documentaries. Th ...
News and sport *
Bloomberg Television Bloomberg Television (on-air as Bloomberg) is an American-based pay television network focusing on business and capital market programming, owned by Bloomberg L.P. It is distributed globally, reaching over 310 million homes worldwide. It is head ...
– Original live channel and on-demand content *
British Eurosport Eurosport 1 is a French television sports network channel which is a division of Eurosport and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Discovery took a 20% minority interest share in December 2012, and became majority shareholder in the Eurospo ...
– Original live channel and on-demand content *Sports Xtra – On-demand content *
Setanta Sports 1 Eir Sport 2 (stylised as eir Sport 2, formerly Setanta Sports 1) was an Irish pay television channel owned by Setanta Sports Channel Ireland.administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...
and subsequently closed down Film * Turner Classic Movies (TCM) – Original live channel and on-demand content Kids *
Toonami Toonami ( ) is an American late night television programming block that primarily broadcasts Japanese animation and occasionally American action animation. It was created by Sean Akins and Jason DeMarco and produced by Williams Street, a divis ...
– Original live channel and on-demand content *
Boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning b ...
– Original live channel and on-demand content *
Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
– Original live channel and on-demand content *
Cartoon Network Too Cartoon Network Too (stylised CN Too) was a British television channel that was owned by Turner Broadcasting. CN Too was the sister station of Cartoon Network, and it often aired programmes a while after they are shown on the main Cartoon Netwo ...
*
Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...
*
Disney Channel Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...


ESPN

ESPN was a premium sport channel offering
Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
football, among other sports, for a monthly fee. The channel could be accessed through a
conditional-access module A conditional access module (CAM) is an electronic device, usually incorporating a slot for a smart card, which equips an integrated digital television or set-top box with the appropriate hardware facility to view conditional access content ...
(CAM), set top box with a slot, an IDTV with a slot or through a Top Up TV Freeview+ box. It replaced
Setanta Sports 1 Eir Sport 2 (stylised as eir Sport 2, formerly Setanta Sports 1) was an Irish pay television channel owned by Setanta Sports Channel Ireland.ESPN America ESPN America was a British-based European sports network, focusing on professional and collegiate sports of the United States and Canada. Originally launched on 5 December 2002 as NASN (the ''North American Sports Network''), ESPN America broadca ...
filled airtime whilst carriage negotiations were ongoing. The channel is still offered by
BT TV BT TV is a subscription IPTV service offered by BT; a division of United Kingdom telecommunications company BT Group, and was originally launched as BT Vision in December 2006. As of the end of June 2019, BT TV had 1.9 million customers. ...
under their
BT Sport BT Sport is a group of broadcasting of sports events, pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, Warner Bros. Dis ...
package.


Sky Sports

Sky Sports 1 and 2 were also offered as of 2 August 2010 as
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 ...
's pay-TV review saw the channels being offered under a wholesale must offer (WMO) agreement which effectively forces
BSkyB 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 ...
to offer these channels to its competitors. Using capacity which BT secured and used to offer the same channels to its
BT Vision BT TV is a subscription IPTV service offered by BT; a division of United Kingdom telecommunications company BT Group, and was originally launched as BT Vision in December 2006. As of the end of June 2019, BT TV had 1.9 million customers. ...
subscribers, Top Up TV also offered these two channels to its subscribers which officially launched on 2 August 2010. Top Up TV had been able to offer Sky Sports 1 & 2, and ESPN via a conditional-access module from October 2011. This was possible only via CI+ compatible IDTVs and set-top boxes.


Equipment

Top Up TV offered its services over a range of devices. The Top Up TV Freeview+ DTR's offered all services from Top Up TV. All Top Up TV set-top boxes and
CAM Calmodulin (CaM) (an abbreviation for calcium-modulated protein) is a multifunctional intermediate calcium-binding messenger protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells. It is an intracellular target of the secondary messenger Ca2+, and the bin ...
's allowed access to
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
whilst the CI+ CAM and approved set-top boxes allowed viewers to subscribe to
Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...
and ESPN. A viewing smartcard (viewing card) is used to unlock customers' services. Top Up TV used the
Nagravision Nagravision (or Nagra Kudelski or simply Nagra) is a company of the Kudelski Group that develops conditional access systems for digital cable and satellite television. The name is also used for their main products, the Nagravision encryption syste ...
Merlin (NagraVision 3) encryption since a card swap in 2008. Previously programmes were encrypted by MediaGuard SECA2, a more secure version of the encryption system of previous digital terrestrial incumbent
ITV Digital ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners o ...
. All Top Up TV set top boxes and DTR's were required to have at least an 8-day EPG, similar to the requirement for normal Freeview boxes.


Top Up TV Freeview+ box (DTR)

A range of Top Up TV Freeview+ digital TV recorders, also known as DTRs, automatically records programmes broadcast overnight, which the user can then watch on-demand. The first generation box was manufactured by Thomson –
Thomson DTI 6300-16 The Thomson DTI 6300-16 (or 6300-25 to denote the 250GB version) was the first digital television recorder used to access Top Up TV’s push video on-demand service. The device first launched on the market in 2006. Previously the Top Up TV Freevi ...
containing a 160GB HDD. Higher capacity boxes were introduced later on with the Thomson DTI 6300–25, effectively the
Thomson DTI 6300-16 The Thomson DTI 6300-16 (or 6300-25 to denote the 250GB version) was the first digital television recorder used to access Top Up TV’s push video on-demand service. The device first launched on the market in 2006. Previously the Top Up TV Freevi ...
with a 250GB HDD. Different manufacturer's equipment such as Luxor, Bush, Sharp, Wharfdale and a new Thomson box were available from retailers such as Argos and ASDA. These newer boxes contain varying degrees of capacity ranging from 160GB to 500GB. Included in the packaging was a Top Up TV bespoke remote control and
SCART SCART (also known as or , especially in France, 21-pin EuroSCART in marketing by Sharp in Asia, Euroconector in Spain, EuroAV or EXT, or EIA Multiport in the United States, as an EIA interface) is a French-originated standard and associated 21- ...
lead, a signal improvement kit, an RF lead and a power cable. Printed materials include the Top Up TV welcome pack, a remote control codes guide and an instruction manual. The rear of the box had two SCART sockets, two tuners, an
S-Video S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video ) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate channe ...
output, analogue phono output and Digital Audio output. It featured a powered but functionless
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...
port on the front or rear of the DTR.


Set-top box (STB)

Initially, Top Up TV made use of
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 s ...
es with viewing card slots to offer a linear pay TV service. At launch, only ex-
ITV Digital ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners o ...
boxes were available, but new boxes were soon produced, bearing the "Top Up TV Ready" logo. Since the unavoidable move towards
on demand On-demand or on demand may refer to: Manufacturing * Build-on-demand * Just-in-time manufacturing, a methodology for production * Print on demand, printing technology and business process in which new copies of a document are not printed until an ...
, the live channel hours were reduced and eventually closed. All previous "Top Up TV Ready" set-top boxes with viewing card slots were later only able to receive ESPN. With the launch of Sky Sports in 2010, BSkyB insisted that the viewing
smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...
must be paired to the set-top box. Whilst Top Up TV Freeview+ DTR's have this facility using the CAN number, few other set-top boxes offered this facility and had to be approved by Top Up TV. These approved boxes included the i-CAN Freeview HD Box, the Top Up TV T215 and Sagem IDT68 and IDT72.


Conditional-access module (CAM)

A
conditional-access module A conditional access module (CAM) is an electronic device, usually incorporating a slot for a smart card, which equips an integrated digital television or set-top box with the appropriate hardware facility to view conditional access content ...
can be inserted into a CI slot mostly found on modern IDTVs to enable decryption of encrypted services. Whilst Top Up TV offered a branded CAM, only ESPN could be received. This is due to BSkyB having concerns with the security of these modules meaning Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 are not available. CI+ CAMs were due to become available to overcome such security concerns, offering access to Sky Sports and ESPN from August 2011, but there were delays to the launch due to Top Up TV having difficulties trying to identify compatible devices. These devices finally appeared in October 2011.


References


External links


Official website
archived in May 2013 – via Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Top Up Tv Mass media companies established in 2004 Mass media companies disestablished in 2015 Digital television in the United Kingdom Pay television