The Beginning of the End of SD Services on Satellite - 8th January 2024

After 25 years in service, all the BBC SD channels on Sky / Freesat were closed down forever on Monday 8th January 2024, marking the beginning of the end of SD Services on Satellite in the UK & Ireland.

It's pretty clear that this is the beginning of the end, as ITV also followed suit and closed the SD versions of ITV3, ITV4 and ITVBe and some regional SD variants of ITV1, STV and UTV the following day.

This video will show me channel surfing through all the now defunct BBC SD channels with the upgrade message that will be displayed until March 2024, as well as the ITV SD channels that closed the following day. Also, I surf through the BBC Radio channels (checking if they still work but my box is HD capable so a bit of a pointless decision really) and look through the Red Button Service (was checking to see if it would still work and it does, but looks extremely out of date):

Unfortunately, I was not able to capture the actual BBC SD closedowns as this was scheduled to happen at 6am (which I set my recorder for), but it didn't take place until 10:54am. If you want to see the actual closedowns, [BlueFrogTV] has flawlessly captured each closedown on the channels that were on air at the time:

BBC One:    • The exact moment BBC One SD closed on sate...  
BBC Two / News / Parliament (A 3-way simulcast):    • The exact moment BBC Two/News SD closed on...  
CBBC:    • The exact moment CBBC SD closed on satelli...  
CBeebies:    • The exact moment CBeebies SD closed on sat...  

Also Continuity from the morning of closure for BBC Two SD from SuperLegendary:    • BBC Two SD Continuity & Shutdown - Monday ...  

Final Continuity link on BBC One Nightlight from Ivan O Sullivan:    • Last Continuity On BBC One SD (Nightlight)...  

BBC Three, Four, Scotland and Alba were not on air anyway at the time of closure and as of the upload date of this video, no one has yet uploaded BBC RB 1's closure

I am however in the process of recording continuity from the "proposed" final day (Sunday 7th January) of each SD channel (and the actual SD closedowns of BBC Scotland, Alba, Three & Four) as well as continuity from the final evening of the SD versions of ITV3, ITV4 and ITVBe, which will be uploaded over the coming months.

Special Thanks to [BlueFrogTV], SuperLegendary and Ivan O Sullivan for managing to capture some the actual BBC SD closedowns and the surrounding continuity despite the confusion in the actual time given in articles and from Sky themselves.


UPDATE MARCH 2024: The BBC SD channels were completely wiped from Sky SD boxes on 26th March 2024. Around the same time, I have discovered that Sky will be closing their SD Cinema and Sport channels in May 2024, then switching over their SD entertainment channels to DVB-S2 by August 2024. No news yet on the remainder of the ITV SD channels or other major broadcasters.


UPDATE OCTOBER 2024: Following this video, many more channels either closed their SD variant or were moved to the DVB-S2 transporter meaning these channels are still present on older Sky equipment but no longer have video or audio meaning that either a blank screen, or the "No Satellite signal is received" message is displayed in it's place.

Sky did indeed close their SD variants of all their Sky Cinema channels and the majority of their Sky Sports channels in May 2024 - as for their entertainment channels, they still exist in SD but were moved to the DVB-S2 transporter over the course of Summer 2024.

In July 2024, Channel 4 closed down most SD variants of the main channel but the London version is still accessible on SD only equipment along with all other C4 channels. ITV1 SD and ITV2 SD finally closed down on Sky on 3rd October 2024.

In other parts of the country, RTE closed their SD channels on Sky in April, along with Virgin Media and TV3 during the summer. S4C SD quietly disappeared on 17th September 2024.

Now we just await news from Channel 5, UKTV and will see if the remainder of Channel 4's SD portfolio will soon follow suit in the future. I do know that all existing subscriptions involving SD only Sky equipment will be automatically cancalled during October 2024, so even the remaining subscription channels on the DVB-S transporter won't be accessible anymore.

I do have continuity of the actual closedown of ITV 1 SD and ITV 2 SD on a relative's Sky Q Box who recorded continuity of the evening of 2nd October and morning continuity of 3rd October on both SD channels. I will capture the footage next time I have access to this and upload it
soon.

So with that final note:
R.I.P - Sky Digibox - 1998-2024
R.I.P - Sky+ (1st gen) - 2001-2024