Probably never – just like Sky News, Pick TV is owned by Sky, for whom Freesat poses a large competitive threat.

You can add Sky News to your FreeSat box manually; however, Pick TV is broadcast encrypted on satellite, so FreeSat boxes won’t be able to see it.

I’m surprised that Pick is encrypted, although it may be soft encrypted as Sky 3 (Pick in all but name) was available for Freesat for Sky customers.

There’s no such thing as ‘soft encrypted’ on FreeSat – since no FreeSat box has the capability of decrypting a channel. Sky News (SD) is broadcast in the clear, for example, and can be tuned-in using the “other channels” facility.

Pick TV along with some others (possibly some Channel 4 and 5 variants, the specific ones have changed over time) are ‘Free to View’ (FTV) on Sky – i.e. the broadcast is encrypted, and you need a viewing card to watch – be that a subscription or the “Freesat from Sky” viewing card.

Other services are broadcast ‘Free to Air’ (FTA) – these are not encrypted and can be received by any DVB-S receiver.

The service will only appear on the EPG if the service pays for inclusion in either the Sky or FreeSat EPG as appropriate. There are some FTA services which are only on one EPG – but can be tuned in manually on the other platform – and many other FTA services (TV and radio) carried on the 28.2E cluster of satellites which feature on neither EPG.

and many other FTA services (TV and radio) carried on the 28.2E cluster of satellites which feature on neither EPG.

It’s always said that there’s a lot, but in reality there’s only current Radio Caroline, BBC Radio London and the regional variations of ITV1 and Channel 4 that would be of any interest to anybody that’s available for Sky manual tuning. Everything else is a selection of test cards and blank screens.

[James Cridland] There’s no such thing as ‘soft encrypted’ on FreeSat – since no FreeSat box has the capability of decrypting a channel. Sky News (SD) is broadcast in the clear, for example, and can be tuned-in using the “other channels” facility.

But I think you’ve confused Freesat with Freesat from Sky which Martin was refering to.

Pick TV is FTV (not soft encrypted as Martin Phillp says) on satellite. It is broadcast to anyone with an unexpired Videoguard smartcard, which is why nobody with Freesat can get it.