A free source for UK listings (was: Re: [mythtv-users] UK Listings - No Joy From Digiguide)

[Sam Woodward]

I have a registered Limited Company set up. The company is 
currently not actively trading, but I have kept the legal shell in 
place. If BroadcastingData are only interested in dealing with a 
registered company, rather than individuals, then I would be 
interested in discussing ideas with fellow mythusers before 
approaching them with a business plan.

If there is enough interest then I suggest a meeting of UK 
MythUsers (perhaps in London) to work out the resources that we 
need in terms of hardware/finance and to agree the best way 
forward.

Sam W.

P.S. (My background: I now design/code embedded systems for a 
smart-home technology company in Hertfordshire, but used to be 
in entertainment. Search for "Sam Woodward" on IMBD. And if you 
recogise the surname from this list- I am Paul Woodward's brother.)

> > They also have a free ftp site with 7-day listings on it for BBC,
> > ITV and five (not Channel 4, as far as I can see) in a sort of
> > free-form text format that would need some clever parsing.
> 
> Indeed. I was thinking about this myself. I think it would be a
> trivial for BroadcastingData to provide the data CSV (comma separated
> value) or some such. I have a hunch that BroadcastingData don't want
> to deal with the end-user, but rather want to deal with a company.
> They are London based, so if we can get this together we might be able
> to arrange a meeting with them.
> 
> Here is my idea for that company:
> 
> The company which has a web-site where you can buy a quota of 
> downloads (something like GBP ?? for 365 downloads). The account could
> be set to renew automatically when the downloads run out (or not). The
> idea of the quota is so that if you share your account username and
> password with somebody else then you simply use up your credit sooner.
> 
> The company could provide the TV listing in XMLTV formats (keeping up
> to date with the latest XMLTV format as an option) by translating from
> the BroadcastingData format. 
> 
> Terms and Conditions could be that listings may not be redistributed
> and are for personal use only.
> 
> Could have different pricing schemes depending on how far you want to
> look into the future?
> 
> I think that there is definitely some demand for a sevice like this,
> but the real question is if there is enough demand to make the idea
> fly.