FREE-PG

FREE-PG is a United Kingdom based organisation that specialises in creating electronic programming guide (EPG) software for digital television providers. It's name is a play on the EPG abbreviation.

Foundation of FREE-PG
FREE-PG was formed in 2010, with the goal to make set top box navigation as customisation and as user friendly as possible, as well as making EPG software easy to get up and running.

Early stages of FREE-PG
At the very beginning, the team had already started work on their first EPG, which was intended to be showcased to companies in hopes that they would have interest in their work. It was written in Python, and the visual interface was written in HTML. It used a USB aerial, which would receive Freeview channels and their corresponding data from the local transmitter. Since they were already using Freeview for their first product demo, they decided to pitch the idea to Freeview first, for convenience's sake. A couple of years went by until the team finally managed to reach out to them (2014). During these years, they kept updating and refining the EPG, making sure it would definitely impress Freeview. They also designed a logo for the organisation, which is still used to this day. Freeview was interested, but would only allow the EPG software on their services if FREE-PG would agree to only develop EPG software for them. The team was quite reluctant to take up this offer, because they wanted to develop software for everyone to use and modify. After a bit of encouragement by the marketing team, Freeview allowed them to develop for other providers. Their software is now present on Freeview's online programming guide page, with some tweaks to the software to be able to interact with Freeview's servers directly. In mid 2015, FREE-PG was commisioned by BSKYB (British Sky Broadcasting) to develop a new version of Sky Go, their mobile app which allows people with a subscription to Sky Digital to watch television channels on their mobile devices. This was soon cancelled by Sky with the upcoming introduction of Sky Q, their current live television service.

Present day
In 2019, FREE-PG created a website to showcase their creations, with a working copy of the EPG they developed for Freeview. It also contains contact information, an introduction to the development kit and how to customise the EPG, as well as a list of providers they work with.