Strangely, on the very day that Virgin 1 launches, sly old Sky have announced detailed plans for their own next move on Freeview.

As suspected, Sky are taking their free channels (Sky Three, Sky News, and Sky Sports News) off Freeview, and replacing them with a new pay service called "Picnic", which will initially offer a selection of content from Sky Movies, Sky One, Sky Sports 1, and unspecified children's and factual channels, split across the three 24 hour streams in Sky's possession.

An apparently fast news week for Freeview brings the story that UKTV G2, the younger sister channel to UKTV Gold, is to launch on Freeview - but, somewhat bizarrely, it will be rebranded at the same time to "Dave" - emphasising its appeal to young men, particularly of the David variety.

According to Dave's head of programming Steve North, UKTV G2 has "a schedule for which most broadcasters would give their eye teeth", but relatively low brand awareness. Launching on Freeview, and becoming the first channel to be named after my uncle, apparently enables them to "create a strong and noisy personality for the channel that immediately aligns us with our core 16-34 male audience."

Virgin Media have announced a launch date for their new flagship channel - October 1st.

Virgin 1, intended as a premium quality rival to Sky One as part of the cable company's ongoing battle with the satellite giant, will be launching on all platforms - including Freeview. Virgin have signed up a lot of new content for the channel, including the Terminator-inspired series The Sarah Connor Chronicles, various series of Star Trek, and several other new US imports.

ABC1, the Disney-owned digital channel which originally launched on Freeview, is set to close next month.

Home of a never-ending loop of slightly irritating sitcoms such as 8 Simple Rules and Ellen, the channel began life on Freeview in 2004 as one of the first to launch exclusively on the platform. It later joined Cable and Sky, where it was able to broadcast into the evening, but the acute lack of space on Freeview (and the huge price it now carries) meant it was never able to extend its hours, and it's this lack of any prime-time presence on Freeview that's apparently killed the channel. It will be closing on all platforms in October, bringing misery to lovers of Hope and Faith across the country.

Sky have finally reacted to the growing threat from Freeview to their core pay television business, by announcing plans to launch a pay service on the same platform later this year.

The tide may be starting to turn against the recent crop of quiz channels that have been appearing on Freeview. The first in the line - Quizcall - which later saw competition from ITVPlay, SmileTV, and the neverending "Quiz night live" strand on FTN, looks set to leave the platform soon.

Two new channels from terrestrial broadcaster Five will be launching on Freeview from October 15th. Five US will showcase top American drama, films, documentaries, sport and comedy, while Five Life will be firmly pitched towards women with dramas and lifestyle shows. More details on mediaguardian (free registration required).

As reported previously, space for the two channels has come from Top Up TV, the apparently ailing pay TV provider. TUTV appear to be winding down their current channel package in favour of a new "Top Up TV Anytime" product, consisting of a propietary hard disk recorder and some form of overnight programme download.

When we moved into our current flat about two years ago, I plugged in our old Freeview box and immediately faced a stark truth - the aerial was rubbish, and we were missing a load of channels. There followed an agonising six months while, helpless in the face of a communal aerial system that we had no control over, I juggled a variety of different aerial leads, signal boosters and shielded socketry until we had a reliable picture on all channels, on both TV's. Hoorah.

On the saturday we left on holiday last week, that craptacular non-Freeview-friendly shared aerial was hit by a bolt of lightning. On the one hand, this was bad news since none of the recordings we had set worked, while the old aerial remained in place, thoroughly knackered at the hand of god. But then, good news - a text from my parents (who were keeping an eye on the plants) to say that a bright shiny new Freeview friendly aerial was being installed. Hoorah+1! No more need for boosters, I confidently thought, like the idiot I am.

Channel 4 have confirmed a date for movie channel Film Four's debut on Freeview, and rebranded it at the same time, with a rather.. odd new logo (right) and a slight twist on the name - it's not Film Four anymore, oh no, it's Film4, and it's launching on Sunday July 23rd.

Five are to launch two new free-to-air channels on Freeview, using channel slots bought from pay-tv operator Top Up TV. Five US will showcase American imports such as CSI and Law & Order, while Five Life will be a lifestyle channel, with "Milkshake" programming for kids mixed in.

Five has been desperate to launch these channels after seeing their audience share eaten away by multichannel competitors like ITV2, 3, & 4, and Channel 4's E4 & More4 - but unlike ITV and Channel 4 they were previously unable to use their own gifted space on the Freeview platform, as they had - perhaps shortsightedly - leased it out to TUTV.