A family-run TV station that has gained millions of loyal viewers by broadcasting vintage movies and cult shows from a garden shed warns it faces the axe if the Government moves ahead with plans to switch off Freeview.
Talking Pictures TV is the UK’s biggest independent channel, devoted to keeping the golden age of British film and TV alive. It has built an audience of six million with an archive ranging from Diana Dors B-movies to Z-Cars.
Set up in 2015 by film enthusiast Noel Cronin, 79, with daughter Sarah Cronin-Stanley, and run with volunteers from the shed of the Hertfordshire home, Taking Pictures TV’s founders fear that forcing its older audience to switch from free-to-air digital terrestrial viewing to streaming-only television will be fatal for their channel.
Shorts
Ministers are currently consulting on two options – switching off Digital Terrestrial Television signals (or Freeview) at the end of 2034, or a slower, managed transition to internet-only TV in 2044.
