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.