TopUP TV is Top Down Thinking

Television is being shaken up. No longer is the British consumer stuck with 4 and a bit channels - now they can choose from multiple providers and multiple platforms. One of the offers available to consumers with selected 'Freeview' boxes is TopUp TV.

Both the packaging and the website of TopUp TV promises programming from MTV, LIVING, UKTV Gold, Paramount Comedy and Hallmark Channel. What they don't tell you, is that you pay to get one program per day per channel and you don't get to decide which one.

In a world where 'on demand' is on the rise, here is a service that charges the consumer for a force-fed sample of media content. What's more, the media content is often tired re-runs of programming that was originally 'free to air'.

This week, while trialling the service, the box decided that I could not record my preferred freeview channel because one of the TopUp Tv channels was downloading something. The screen provided me with a rather unhelpful error, that wouldn't tell me which program was being downloaded, or give me any option to stop it. When I asked customer services about it later, they advised to to deactivate the whole channel. The offending program? Fawlty Towers!!!

This week, programs that were offered included Coupling (original air date 2000), Fawlty Towers (original air date 1975), Sex and the City (original air date 1998). The shiny new Two and a Half Men, offered on the new Warner Channel 'failed to download'...

TopUp TV were invited to comment and said only "Top Up TV Anytime now has a large and growing base of loyal customers who are enjoying the flexibility of having great programmes available on their DTR to watch at a time to suit them."

For this media consumer, it misses the mark by miles.