In what has been a remarkable week of changes for live TV services, today was the turn of the CBS AMC UK Channel Partnership to revamp their channels.
CBS Justice and CBS Drama closed. Legend, Horror Xtra and Reality Xtra arrived on channel lists. CBS Reality – for now – remains unchanged.
This was quite a big task and created some anomalies first thing, including a brief simulcast of the new Legend service on two Freeview channels.
Depending on where you get your TV from, Legend either replaced CBS Justice or Horror.
Here’s how the services changed:
| Feed | Before | Now |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CBS Reality | CBS Reality |
| 2 | CBS Drama | Reality Xtra |
| 3 | CBS Justice | Legend |
| 4 | CBS Reality+1 | CBS Reality+1 |
| 5 | CBS Justice (ROI) | REMOVED |
| 6 | CBS Reality (ROI) | CBS Reality (ROI) |
| 7 | Horror Channel | Horror Xtra |
| 8 | Horror Channel+1 | Horror Xtra+1 |
On Freeview, feed #7 Horror Channel was changed in the early hours across to feed #3, so that viewers on channel 41 enjoyed a straight transition from Horror to Legend – one of the few Freeview changes today that didn’t require a retune.
On satellite, cable and Freeview channel 69, CBS Justice closed down in the early morning and started up a few hours later as Legend.
Freeview channel 69 then showed Legend under the label ‘CBS Justice’ until channel 69 was turned off at 11am. It meant that for a brief time, Legend was simulcast on two channels – 41 and 69.
Once 11am had passed, the EPG for CBS Justice changed to ‘service closed’. This was briefly also seen on Freesat, although here CBS Justice had been replaced by Legend. After lunch, the correct EPG for Legend was showing on Freesat.
Reality Xtra started up on Freeview channel 68 this morning in direct replacement of CBS Drama before being pulled from Arqiva’s COM6 multiplex. It is now being broadcast on the local TV multiplex, so you’ll only be able to watch Reality Xtra on Freeview if you are in an area served by a local channel on either 7 or 8.
There’ve been no changes to the catch-up service on platforms including Freeview Play. CBS Reality and Reality Xtra are still found under the CBS Channels Catch-up service and Legend’s content is under Horror Bites.
If you live in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Newcastle or in parts of North East Wales, you’ll also see CBS Reality programmes continue on your local TV channel from 9am – 1pm, 2pm – 6pm and 8pm – 2am.
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: Freesat promotional image for CBS channel changes. COPYRIGHT: Freesat.