3. Only 2 of the 6 multiplexes are allowed to carry pay channels anyway
What gave you that idea? Only multiplex 1 specifically can't carry pay channels. The ITC may have chosen Freeview (actually BBC Freetoview Limited) on the grounds that their service would be free and that would be best for platform, but there is nothing at all in the licence which prohibits pay channels.
The only clause they have is that if they have pay channels, they must either use a common conditional access system, or make available the details of any new system, in order to ensure that the public has ready access to equipment which can decode the signal.
As Noggin said in the original thread for this, clearing some of the junk out of SDN and D3&4 (are you really saying you would miss TV Travel Shop?) would release just about enough space to get a good 8 or so channels on.
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2. Sky would not want a competitor, no matter how puny
It needn't be a competitor, if it's targetted at the right services. ONdigital's/ITV Digital's biggest failing was the perceived need to take on Sky, something which would always fail. There were potentially millions of people for whom Sky/cable was not an option. They were never tapped into. Sky and On Digital could have coexisted if On Digital's strategy wasn't to take on Sky.
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3. Only 2 of the 6 multiplexes are allowed to carry pay channels anyway
I've answered that one above.
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It should not happen anyway
oh, that's an argument and a half
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If you want Pay Tv why not go elsewhere? Introducing a pay element would only encourage any new channels to go pay, and confuse the public.
Because not everyone can. If I was moving into my own house and had a choice of Sky or pay DTT, I'd go for Sky every time. But, not everyone can. I can't have Sky now (I only had it last year after spending much time persuading the landlord to let me have a dish).
Why would it confuse the public? Freeview would still exist. All those marvellous channels like FTN and UK Bright Ideas and Sky Sports News would still be there. But people who actually want something to watch (which Freeview just can't deliver) and who are willing to pay for the likes of Sky One and UK Gold could then do so.
It would just introduce a two tiered system. These exist all over the place. Back when OD was running, you could take out the prepay option for 6 subscription channels, but you also had the option of paying a nominal subscription (I think it was £2.99 / month) to get all the primary channels. Did that option confuse people because it was branded as On Digital Prepay? I think not.
To believe that only us clever TV presentation boffs have any sense and 'the public' is too stupid to understand that they can have Freeview with or without the option of paying to get pay channels is not crediting people with the sense they were born with.
Anyway, do I think it should happen? As you've probably guessed, absolutely.
Why? Because Freeview is crap! I'm sorry to upset people who manage to get by with watching endless hours of Sky News and Bid Up.tv to fill in the gaps between the highlights of the same documentaries about World War II on UK History and the same episode of Undercover Customs on Sky Travel that you've seen 20 times before over the last couple of weeks, to say nothing of the excitement of waiting for 'in the pipeline' channels to launch which will make the platform 200% but which then never appear (CBM, Setanta, TCM, possibly even Daytime by the looks of it) or appear but don't deliver what they promised (FTN).
But I'm afraid I like a little more choice from established channels showing some decent programmings. I don't see that from Freeview. I do see that from Sky One, UK Gold, Paramount etc. I accept that many of these channels have gone downhill, but they're still better than what's on Freeview. And unfortunately, these channels come at a price: you must pay to see them.
It's a necessary evil, but I'm more than happy to do it if I can afford it in order to get something on the box that I want to see. As do many other people - I think you'll find the general concensus amongst ex-ITVD subscribers who didn't have the option of changing to any other pay service and so now suffer Freeview, is that they would rather still be paying for ITVD than get Freeview for free.
Freeview isn't going anywhere - there will still be free channels on DTT, but people who want pay channels will (if this goes ahead anyway, it's not certain that it is) now have the option of having them. What is wrong with that? It's their money, and their decision.
Before anyone says 'On/ITV Digital tried that and it failed - it can't be done', they failed because they tried on Sky, they wanted Sky out of the living room and On Digital in. Brilliant if they could do it, but it was just impossible, it was a futile move which they lost. As I said above, there was a market base which could have kept them afloat which they never tapped in to.
Their first failure happened even before their launch. They pushed for Sky to get kicked out of the BDB consortium, then causing Sky to firmly target them in their sights. It is true that Sky would control a lot - maybe too much - of the UK pay TV market with them in BDB, but having Sky in with them could have made the ride a lot easier and the platform viable; many channels were locked into exclusive contracts with Sky (that's why Nickelodeon, Discovery, Paramount et al took so long to appear), with Sky in with them they may have tried to renegotiate to enable them to launch on OD sooner, ITV Sport Channel (which was what finally pushed them over the edge) would doubtless never have materialised, and they wouldn't have invested such daft of money in it, Sky may have provided them greater access to their own channel range (remember all the hassle involved - eventually requiring ITC intervention - to get Sky Sports 2 on OD?), and if the going still did get tough, Sky's financial muscle may have propped them up for a bit longer to see if they could recover (remember that when Sky originally launched, Murdoch's pockets were so deep that he could afford to run it at a loss for 3 years without any real damage being done to his wallet - this doubtless would have been the case for OD too). They would have been so much stronger with Sky on board, and kicking them out caused them to face an uphill battle to get going - and they wouldn't have a disgruntled Sky targetting them at every opportunity.
Then, rather than realising that their opportunity to be in the big time has ended, rather than trying to stay within their station (at least until they broke even anyway) they actually tried direct competition with Sky.
As a disgruntled ex-employee said, the atmosphere was very much 'Sky has open, so we had to have On Net (later ITV Active), Sky had Box Office, so we had to have On Request (later ITV Select), Sky had Sky Sports, so we had to have ITV Sport Channel' etc.
One of the last ITV Digital adverts I remember was plugging the fact that they had 'more football than Sky' - they were seriously trying to argue that people should be throwing their dishes away over the ITV Sport Channel. There is actually evidence that money of those subscribing to it also kept their Sky subscriptions up, choosing to pay twice rather than loose Sky. It was a doomed approach.
What should they have done? Targetted the audience which Sky couldn't reach. They did of course (before ITV Digital anyway) make a big deal out of the fact that you didn't need a dish or a cable to receive it, but would about people who COULDN'T have a dish or a cable? Why wasn't there an advert set in a tower block flat of someone watching Sky One - made possible only through On Digital.
Their prepay option - imo their trump card because Sky didn't and doesn't offer an alternative - was never promoted enough. They could have targetted the second TV/kid's bedroom market; whilst few people would justify paying two subscriptions, many people wouldn't think twice about shelling out £80 to put more channels on another TV in their house (it would of course only be for a year, but I bet you that most people wouldn't think about that - or of course could relax in the knowledge that once that year was up they could get rid of it again if they wanted to). It probably would have been a popular christmas/birthday present for teenagers if only it had been marketed as such.
They could have targetted students. Very few would like to take a subscription out to pay TV, many can't physically have a dish or a cable, but most wouldn't think twice about paying a one off, forget about it fee, to have Sky One and MTV in their room. Why then, when I started uni in 2001, student loan burning a hole in my pocket, did I not walk into my union bar to see big adverts for ITV Digital prepay which would give me the necessary? As it happens, I did hold onto to ITVD so I could still have pay channels at uni, but many other people didn't realise you could do this - I was actually the direct cause of two people going out and getting prepay (and subsequently felt guilty when it promptly went bust only halfway through their prepaid period).
They could even have targetted people who could afford pay TV but their credit rating says otherwise and so can't get a subscription (although admittedly, Sky is unlikely to turn you down for anything less than bankruptcy), but On Digital prepay, which doesn't need a credit check since the contract period is paid up in advance, offered a route to them?
I don't recall any of this ever being promoted. All I ever remember is constantly being told that they have this and Sky don't, and the existance of the ITV Sport Channel meant that you really should turn your dish into a dustbin lid and go out and get ITVD. There was an awful lot they didn't have, their technical quality was bad, they didn't even have price on their side since they targetted much the same as Sky - why did they ever think this would work?
There were so many untapped people which they never targetted, and those people they did target were the wrong people, so it was no surprise it struggled, and then the death warrant was signed when they foolishly spent so much on football rights for the ITV Sport Channel, expecting a rush which quite predictably never materialised.
This new service sounds like it might get it right - it's offering a small number of non-premium channels (which are therefore cheaper to licence) for a reasonable price to people who want them. It's got no dilusions about taking on Sky, it's just a basic service to help out people with no other means of getting pay TV, and to satisfy the needs of those people who only want a few pay channels to give them a bit more choice, and it's lower price tag should make it more appealing to people who struggle (or can't) afford Sky's spiralling subscription costs (I have to say, whilst I would have held onto it for the choice it gave me, I would be seriously feeling the pressure now if I still was subscribed to Sky - the family package is now almost £20/month. It also must sound appealing to bedroom/kid's room TVs to provide more channel choice without an expensive second Sky subscription (which is no longer the bargain it once was - to say nothing of the installation costs of it too). It sounds like it's going for the right customers - i.e. not Sky's, and that imo straight away makes it more viable than ITV Digital ever was.
I hope it's accomodated on DTT, I hope no one succesfully blocks it, and I hope it does well. And I will be a subscriber from day one.
I think ITV Digital had some brilliant services. It's annoying that Freeview stopped supporting the boxes, because this allowed crap like the Freeview boxes to emerge, which means we can never go back and have the services again because half the new boxes wont support them.
In my opinion, this would make a great Freeview service:
1. You go to the shop and buy your Freeview box. Nothing to sign here.
2. You get home and plug the box in. Then you call Freeview and tell them your name, address and the number on the back of your viewing card. Your card is activated.
3. You put your viewing card in and the free services are unlocked. 20 free to view digital channels are watchable.
4. If you gave Freeview your credit card information, then you'd have access to 5 pay-per-view movie channels where you pay once and get to see the film. This would be done through the box, and no need to telephone up.
5. You'd also have a built in internet box, which is free, you only pay for the call charges at 1p a minute, *or* you enter your own ISP information. This would allow you to e-mail from your TV too, and capture pictures from the screen to send.
Do you think this would be a good idea, had they gone ahead with it? I think it would have worked, and attracted even more people to Freeview because at the end of the day, it's still free! I like internet through the TV as well. It never really took off but it would be great to have it as an extra, just to have a look at some internet pages on demand without booting the P.C. up.
The great thing about TV e-mail is that you can chat to friends whilst watching TV, and it would be free too (apart from call charges, but if you had unmetered or broadband then it's no problem).
Oh, and in addtion, this proposal is apparently serious and SDN and Digital 3/4 are selling their space for pay channels (that'll be ITV rubbing their hands with glee, as they get one over on the BBC and finally launch their "Freeview+" service...).
the clues in the word "FREE"view!
what idiots came up with this idea. There are so many pay-per-view channel options- Sky!, why turn, an idea, that
:-"Its a oneoff payment" - old BBC Trailer into a miniversion of Sky.
PS. why the hell would Sky want the competition
Incorrect - Sky wouldn't be operating it. It'd be run by 2 ex-directors of Sky, yes, but not by Sky themselves.
Over on DS I worked out you could have 10 channels (Sky One, UK Gold, Discovery, Plus, Men and Motors, E4, Paramount, Nick, Cartoon Network and TCM) by booting out some of the dross (shopping channels) and by some careful time sharing on Mux 2 and A.
The idea can certainly work, if carried out in the right way. Apparantly the service would only need 300,000 viewers to break even, and already has backing from a US firm.
Pay TV proposal for Freeview What do you think? 
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