ITV 4

After the ITV3 shambolic DSat launch you'd think they'd have learned a lesson. Apparently not.

For one night only... hmm yeah right, probably means a Men and Motors axing.

What a complete botch - this is making ITV plc look like a half-baked amateur operation. Even if it is all Sky's fault, ITV should not have let themselves get into this position!

It smacks of extreme incompetence......and a good move by Sky to ridicule ITV

Hmmm, dunno seems quite plausible. Gives the Sky lot the opportunity to watch the football and the first episode of the much promoted 'Kojak' before joining the platform permanently from Nov 7.

If it is for 'one night only' what happens to M&M on Freeview then ? And is the ITV News Channel still to be sacrificed ?

Good thinking SquareEyes, it does throw the whole thing up in the air again about which channels ITV will keep on each platform. There is no point running ITV NC on just Sky & cable, same with M&M. Their "family of channels" policy seems to be ill-thought out seeing as it was all intended to be FTA and they have neither the capacity on Freeview or the clout with Sky & Teleworst/ntl to ensure the channels actually make it to the screen!

So is ITV4 really being delayed on Sky? If so, wouldn't the launch be under Other Channels if you stored ITV4 yourself?

No.............it's quite clear now that it will replace M&M on Tuesday 1 November on EPG 136, and then move to 120 on 7 Nov, but whether M&M will return is as yet unclear........it's all as we predicted, just 2 days before we thought!

The message from the ITV Duty Office states that ITV4 will replace M&M on 136 for just one night.

A "fudge" then by ITV. What a fiasco..........are they incapable of planning anything properly?

Surely if BSkyB are capable of carrying ITV4 from their transponder then it should be on the allocated EPG number (120) which belongs to ITV anyway. ITV could suspend M&M if necessary and just put up a caption stating that the channel would return on 2 (or 7) November.

I guess there are plenty of "fun & games" going on between BSkyB and ITV at the moment..........I think the end game is yet to come, after all, they tend towards brinkmanship on such ocassions!

EDIT:
To Asa: Will you be launching a sticky for Tuesday in view of the latest news? I am surprised we haven't seen one yet for ITV or Sky Two/Three?

EDIT 2:
Just seen the sticky!

Sky shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of channel launches like this.

How come half a dozen shopping or gaming channels launch unnoticed every week yet when its a major channel like ITV3&4 there's all these problems.

Do we actually know the facts behind why they can't go on 120 from Tuesday or is everyone just blaming ITV because its ITV?

I agree Andrew, and I have mentioned this on another thread - basically BSkyB should not be allowed to control the EPG as well. I believe that the EPG control should rest with SES/Astra who govern the transponder frequencies.

It is a ridiculous state of affairs where a company is transmitting from an authorised (and paid for) freuquency, and yet cannot use its own EPG numbers without "kow-towing" to BSkyB.

For those of us who have taken the time to follow this it looks bad on Sky, but to the general public perhaps it looks very bad on ITV.

OFCOM should be intervening here on behalf of the consumer - that's what we pay them for isn't it?

My understanding is that Sky will only allow three channel launches per week. Now I don't know the reason for that, but with Sky Three launching, I can only assume that two other channels were booked in for launch on the EPG this week, and ITV were too late.