British TV & Radio Overseas
The Astra 2D satellite positioned at 28.2° east, has a footprint focused tightly on the British Isles, making reception difficult in large areas of mainland Europe.
Most of the transponders are used to provide television services available on the Sky and Freesat platforms to the British Isles.
Although the satellite's footprint is tightly focused on the United Kingdom and Ireland, surrounding countries have the ability to pick the signal up (dependent on suitably sized satellite dishes).
The BBC broadcasts all of its domestic television channels, including BBC One HD from the Astra 2D satellite, the only exceptions being the BBC News Channel BBC Alba and BBC Parliament which broadcast from Astra 2A. All domestic BBC channels have been Free to Air since 29 July 2003.
ITV also broadcasts all its television channels (including regional variations of ITV1, as well as STV and UTV) from the Astra 2D satellite.
All ITV channels have been free-to-air as of November 1 2005, although some regions reverted to Free-To-View encryption in 2008 when their lease on one 2D transponder could not be renewed. ITV1 HD and STV HD broadcast from Astra 2D. ITV2 HD, ITV3 HD and ITV4 HD are all currently encrypted and only available on sky.
Most of Channel 4s channels are free-to-air and on Astra 2D, these include Channel 4, Channel 4+1, E4, More4 and Film4 along with their timeshift variants. Channel 4 HD is currently encrypted, the channel is expected to go free-to-air sometime during March 2011, and will join Freesat on April 1 2011.
Channel5 transmits a free-to-air version of its main channel, on Astra 2D, they use borrowed space on one of the BBC transponders, allowing them to be on the Freesat platform.
Channel5 continue to broadcast other free-to-view encrypted versions of their main channel (Sky receiver and card required) and additional spin-offs Channel 5 HD, 5* and 5USA, which currently remain unavailable on Freesat due to lack of capacity on the Astra 2D satellite.
5* and 5USA are expected to be available on Freesat in 2011, once Astra 1N becomes operational mid September 2011..
Irish channels RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, TV3 and TG4, along with Irish radio stations also use the Astra 2D satellite, all TV channels are encrypted and only available with a valid Irish Sky subscription.
With a Sky card from Northern Ireland, viewers can also see RTÉ One, RTÉ Two, and TG4, TV3 is not available. All the Irish radio stations are free-to-air and are listed on both the Sky and Freesat Electronic Programme Guide (EPG).
Saorsat (Freesat) is expected to launch later in 2011, using KA-Sat at 9° east. The service is currently testing.
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