i t v DIGITAL is almost gone now!

Why should ordinary ITV viewers, who are not interested in football, pay the price because of those who do ?

BSkyB do not have any business going near the operation of the DTT market, and any suggestion by those who think they should, could be asking for much higher subscription charges in the future, because of the expansion of their monopoly.

The BBC, ITV and Government should keep the service running - at least that would preserve some accountability - something you would NOT have if BSkyB were to take over the operation.

But for some people, DTT Pay TV is the only pay TV available to them. Why should they be left out just because ITV Digital isn't viable? What about those people who are going to loose Sky One and UK Gold and Discovery and MTV and Nickeloden and Paramount and Sky Sports if ITV Digital goes bust? Yes there is talk about getting some of the current pay channels onto FTA on DTT but this is probably a long way off, and won't ever include the same number of channels which ITV Digital carries now.

I am a firm believer that ITV Digital should go because it is a shambles and wastes too much money and I used to believe in a totally FTA terrestrial service. But thinking about it now (perhaps because for the next 6 months ITVD is the only pay TV available to me) I don't want to loose all pay TV.

BUT a pay DTT service will always be limited compared to satellite or cable, so it needs to be significantly cheaper - the simplicity argument isn't reason enough to guarantee success; OND/ITVD have shown that. Greatly cheaper subscriptions are the only possible thing it could offer which would appeal to a significant number of people. The only company able to afford to run a service for much less money which won't die after a few years is Sky. Maybe that's unfair, but that's the way it is. And it won't extend their monopoly that much. It'll give them an extra million or so subscribers, but they will always have to charge less than the main SkyDigital satellite service, less than ITV Digital do now (their subscriptions need to be half the price they are now to attract enough people to make the service turn a profit).

The SkyDigital Basic idea is the only viable way for pay TV to continue on DTT. Those of you with Sky or Cable may find it easy to say 'DTT should be 100% FTA' - I know I did. But once you realise that that an end to pay TV on FTA means that an awful lot of channels you like won't be available to you any more, it becomes more necessary not to let total FTA happen.

Let Sky on there, only they can make a go of it.

(Edited by cwathen at 8:29 pm on Mar. 21, 2002)

Dearie me, looks like ITV Digital is ITSELF the monkey in all this!

The clubs are depending on this money, and if it has to come from somewhere. ITV Digital made a big mistake in making this deal, but once it was done the clubs started spending the money - who would have expected it not to come? The foundations of the national game are depending on the money to survive and Carlton and Granada have a reponsibilty to pay up.


The market for pay-TV on digital terrestrial was never going to be big. Most people prepared to pay for extra channels would always go to Sky or cable. I think it would be a good thing for everyone if the following happened:

1. Formally close the ITV Digital service.
2. Make the majority of digital terrestrial channels free-to-air, an extention of the analogue terrestrial service.
3. Keep the 'premium' channels (Sky Sports, Sky Movies, FilmFour) as the only pay channels.
4. Give the BBC enough space to improve it's interactive services.
5. Allow slots for ITV1, ITV2, C4, E4 (if they agree to go FTA) & Channel 5, plus an additonal FTA space for C5 if they wish. Also S4C & S4C2 in Wales.
6. The ITC advertises for the remaining slots on a FTA basis. Carlton, Granada, BSkyB, Flextech, Viacom, AOL Time Warner and anyone else would put forward individual channel proposals for the slots, knowing that they would get no subscription money for the channels, only ad revenue, but also knowing that as the country goes digital over the coming years, their channels will be seen by the millions of people who don't opt for Sky or cable but have the DVB televsions which will eventually become standard. The ITC would select a balanced line-up based on quality.

The result of this will be a free-to-air lineup which would attract viewers to digital television who would normally be put off by subscription fees. Eventually, by the time of the analouge switch-off, these channels will become as normal as the current analogue five, even to Sky or cable viewers, as they will be there even when the digibox is turned off.

Will Messrs Murphy, Allen and Prebble do the descent thing? Having brokered such bank busting deals on both ITV1 and ITVdigital they have not acted in the best interests of their shareholders.

Loss of office is a fair price to pay in return for flushing over
£ 1 billion down the toilet.....Isn't it?

Will they still be able to afford to cover Formula One?

I'm pretty sure that deal is done and dusted, and even if they lose the rights I'm sure the BBC or maybe even Channel Four would pick it up. I'm no F1 expert but I can't see it going entriely Pay Per View for a long time.

ITV is in a cash crisis, but AFAIK Carlton & Granada DO stilll have plenty of money to cover this football deal. But they're suddenly treating ITV Digital as an entriely seperate entity, and they're not prepared to bail it out, which I think is a big sign of the conifidence they have of the platform's future.

Dear dear dear. What a mess. I really feel for the employees of ITVD but really Carlton and Granada brought this on themselves and the entire boards of both companies should resign over this... if this were a Japanese company they'd all have jumped off bridges by now, and I don't think that's an exaggeration.

All I can say is that I'm pleased most of the people I knew who worked for a couple of Granada companies are no longer there. There's going to be carnage in the next few months....

I think slowly Carlton & Granada are regretting even creating ITV Digital or On Digital as it was known at first. We've always had SKY since 1993 so I'm bound to be a bit buyist but I always new ITVs Digital Service would never work. The service could have been better had they not pumped money into their Sport Channel which is now goinjg to lose them a lot of money. I do feel sorry for ITV Digital now though, it can't be nice for employees no matter what I think of the service. The BBC & ITV should put aside their differences and work on a more simple form of DTT with mainly the BBC & ITV free to air services and Channel 4 & 5 and just offer some SKY channels for ppv.

that sounds like a really good idea to me and it looks as though it can be implemented easy.
question is, will they actually do it?
if it was my decision i'd say yes.

ITVD is a separate limited company, the Shareholders are Granada & Carlton. As I understand it, if a limited company goes bust, the shareholders are not expected to put any more money in, their liability is limited to the amount of maoney they paid for their shares.

As I see it, G & C have been 'loaning' ITVD money in the hope it comes through this 'difficult' patch. Once it was profitable, G & C as shareholders would receive a dividend and ITVD could start paying back it's loans.

If ITVD goes bust, the Football Clubs wont get any money out of G & C as the agreement is with ITVD ltd. In fact as G & C are probably the biggest creditors of ITVd they will be first in line when the receivers start liquidating the assests.

And I'm still waiting for a refund of £3, I wont hold my breath.

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