Freeview retune

[J T]

Harrison, you forgot to mention BBC4, undoubtedly the best digital channel. In the last couple of months it has shown a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson, shed-loads of Beatles stuff, Jonathan Meades' surreal travelogues, everything Charlie Brooker (Screenwipe, Newswipe, Gameswipe), that retro family thing with an emphasis on technology, where a family have to live through the 70s, 80s and 90s, and on Thursday the programme I'm really looking forward to: Micro Men.

BBC4 alone is worth the licence fee.

Teho - does Norway have any free/state TV channels? Are they any good?

Yep, BBC4 does have some good stuff on (lot of toss also, though, but that's telly).

Our tellies (iDTV - no one ever uses that term any more do they) are always nagging us to retune them, feels like every damn week

Even if it is as simple as pressing OK twice when prompted, it still bugs me as I then have to wait a few moments before I can switch to cable.

[Teho]

Teho - does Norway have any free/state TV channels? Are they any good?

Yes, NRK (Norsk RiksKringkasting - Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) is the state-run network. It isn't free, there's a license that has to be paid by anyone capable of receiving. And until recently you were deemed capable by simply owning a TV set, as all you needed was an arial antenna. So basically every household in the country has been having to pay it. But the arial network was shut down earlier this year, so now people like me who have no other means of receiving can in fact get out of having to pay the license.

It runs four TV channels and 17 radio channels. Any good? Well, depends on who you ask. They are very good at news and weather, political debates, that sort of thing. They have gotten fairly good at entertainment over the last ten or so years but they're still considered boring channels by most if all you want is to be entertained.

One thing of note is that they are at the forefront in the world at adopting new technologies and promoting them. They have for instance embraced Bittorrent and run their own tracker (and where the first broadcasting company in the world to do so) where many of their programs can be downloaded in hi-def. They have had several open-source projects, and a lot of their material (such as their ton of pictures on flickr) can be used by anyone for non-commercial purposes. In fact they encourage it. This whole technology side has it's own webpages and blog called NRKbeta, where several articles are in english due to high international interest in what's going on there. It's all very cool in my opinion, and interesting to follow. (That link is straight to the english introductory page)