MTV texts last-minute offering for free digital television

Viewers of the BBC's digital television service will be able to watch MTV for nothing after the original music television station made a last-minute U-turn to avoid being scooped by a new rival.

It did so in dramatic style, text-messaging its involvement to a BBC press conference announcing the new line-up of channels. MTV's decision to launch its first free-to-air channel in the UK shows it is anxious not to be overtaken by the new dedicated music channels coming from the magazine publisher Emap.

The station will continue with its subscription channels on cable and satellite, but clearly felt it had to have a presence on Freeview, the new service being operated by a consortium headed by the BBC and including Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB.

Emap, the publishers of Smash Hits and other magazines, will now put its own music channel, The Hits, head to head with MTV's The Music Factory. The Music Factory will offer a mixture of chart hits and vintage rock, while The Hits will be chart-based.

The Freeview package announced yesterday will have 30 TV channels and some digital radio channels. They will be available to anyone who buys a £99 box or subscribers to the collapsed ITV Digital who have retained their box. Freeview will carry all the terrestrial channels, plus others including Sky News, BBC3, BBC4, BBC News 24 and ITV2, but no pay channels such as Sky Sports.

The service will include two entertainment channels run by the television company Flextech: FTN, offering new commissions from Flextech's existing channels such as Bravo and Living, and Home Style, which will feature makeovers, quizzes and cookery.

Plans for the general entertainment channels show there will be plenty of reality television. Programmes already commissioned include Chefs in the City and Real Weddings.

Freeview will go live on 30 October and will be available to three-quarters of British households, although about one-quarter of homes will need an aerial upgrade to receive the service. Retailers will be able to tell customers which of the above categories they fall in to by checking their postcode.

Five new digital radio stations were also announced yesterday: Kerrang!, Smash Hits, Kiss, oneword and jazz fm, to add to existing BBC services such as 1Xtra and 6 Music.

The BBC's director of marketing and communications, Andy Duncan, said: "This is something fresh, simple and free. It won't go the way of ITV Digital because it is a very different proposition. There is no ongoing subscription – you just buy the box, take it home and get it working."

* The BBC has secured the rights to the terrestrial TV première of the filmHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone after a bidding war with ITV. No date has been set for it to be shown but there is speculation that it could be BBC1's big family film on Christmas Day next year.