TalkTalk is proud to announce a moment that will change television forever: the launch of YouView on TalkTalk, to be unveiled at a once-in-a-lifetime pop up breakfast retrospective hosted by television icon Joanna Lumley in London’s Soho tomorrow, Thursday 27th September.
From today, TalkTalk is providing free YouView boxes with no additional TV subscription to its Plus phone and broadband customers; bringing on demand, catch-up services and the ability to buy premium sports and movies on a flexible basis to many households for the first time.
To celebrate, TalkTalk has asked the British public to choose the moments that have changed television forever – so far. While many iconic moments of television programming have made the top ten (out of a possible thirty), this year’s appearance by Her Majesty the Queen and Daniel Craig as James Bond came out on top.
Television historian Professor Jonathan Bignell says, “what makes this television moment so iconic is the juxtaposition of the Queen and James Bond together. Viewers gazed in wonder and puzzlement, pride and laughter: is this really the Queen? The moment beautifully broke the boundaries between fact and fiction, and in doing so made its mark worldwide”. The moments that have been voted as the moments that changed television forever are, in descending order:
- James Bond and Her Majesty the Queen at the Olympic opening ceremony, 2012
- The wrong chandelier, Only Fools and Horses, 1992
- Basil Fawlty’s car thrashing tantrum, Fawlty Towers, 1975
- London winning the Olympic bid, 2005
- The Moon Landing, 1969
- The first Big Brother, 2000
- Live Aid and Bob Geldof’s leadership, 1985
- Emu attacks Michael Parkinson, 1976
- The dead parrot sketch, Monty Python, 1969
- Den serving Angie with divorce papers at Christmas, EastEnders, 1986
Professor Bignell continues, “Television has always brought people together, from gathering around the family television set to getting people talking about their favourite television moments at work, at school and with friends. Catch-up, Freeview and on-demand services have recently brought greater access to a wider range of content but required separate technologies, fragmenting the television experience. YouView from TalkTalk brings it all together, changing forever the way we watch. Access to quality programming, live, to watch again, and to catch if you missed it, means that each viewer will be able to join in the television conversation”.
The launch of YouView from TalkTalk will mean that TalkTalk customers can watch more than 100 digital television and radio channels whilst enjoying the benefits of having a PVR. Not only can they watch in HD but they can also record, pause and rewind live TV and scroll back through TalkTalk’s EPG to find programmes they have missed over the past seven days. TalkTalk customers will receive the easy-to-use set top box for free and need only to pay a £50 installation charge for a TalkTalk engineer to ensure that the system is set up correctly.
“We’re committed to making the television our customers want to watch accessible and affordable for all,” said Dido Harding, CEO, TalkTalk. “We’re proud to mark today’s launch as a moment that really changes television forever alongside moments in TV history that have each, in their own way, challenged preconceptions, pushed boundaries and redefined the medium of television”.