Disney to launch ABC1 on Freeview.
Well, you wait ages for a decent Freeview channel to come along, and suddenly, there is a rush of them. Hard on the heels of the news of ITV3's launch, comes word from Digitial Spy of the launch of Disney's Freeview channel, ABC1, which will take place on September 27th. The channel will initially be on air for 12 hours a day, and will also be Freeview only for a while, before launching later on Sky and cable, and the first few months will be ad-free, though ads will appear at a later date. These revelations are interesting, as it demonstrates that Disney do seem to be putting a lot of money into this channel, which they are not expecting to immediately get back, so perhaps they are in this for the long haul? Also, with ABC1, ITV3 and More4 all on the way, it does seem to suggest that Freeview wants to grow, which certainly doesn't seem to bode well for Top-Up TV. On the other hand, Sky subscriber numbers are not climbing quite so rapidly, which might suggest that Top-Up TV might just be denting Sky a bit, so who knows what the future of DTT holds.
