TV Home Forum

ITV channels fall off Sky

(May 2018)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
VM
VMPhil
The now offline website Sub TV had a whole page about the ITV satellite tests. The short story: they started tests on 26th October 2001, with the proper launch on 21st November. ITV2 appeared the next day.

Worth reading through the whole page though:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060213220636/http://www.sub-tv.co.uk:80/dsat/itvtests.asp
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
ITV Digital was rebranded as such in July 2001. The ITV Digital boxes software wise were never updated to reflect the new company, and then you had that entire saga about whether you had to send the Ondigital boxes back to the administrators or not - in the end you didn't have to. I think they were still working as late as the switchover (effectively outlasting the entire OnDigital/ITV Digital company by twice as long) when for technical reasons they couldn't be used anymore and people had to buy a Freeview box.
AS
Asa Admin
VMPhil posted:
The now offline website Sub TV had a whole page about the ITV satellite tests. The short story: they started tests on 26th October 2001, with the proper launch on 21st November. ITV2 appeared the next day.

And here’s how we covered it all those years ago https://tvforum.uk/tvhome/itv1-sky-35803/ & https://tvforum.uk/tvhome/itv1-pictures-dsat-34149/

My comment about going to Woolies to pick up some blank tapes doesn’t half date it Very Happy I think I’ve still got those tapes somewhere of Carlton and LWT idents with the burnt in black dots they had during the tests.
JA
james-2001
Asa posted:


Wonderful couple of posts there, I wonder if Tumble Tower was taking notes?

Quote:
Right, lets start taking bets at what ridiculous cryptic channel id's will be given to the itv1 tests on monday:

my guess is ICL, ICC, IGR, ISC

(I for ITV1, CL for Carlton London, CC for Carlton Central, GR for Granada, SC for Scottish etc.), or can anyone think of anything more ridiculous......


Quote:
How about:

1G - Granada
1S - Scottish
1CL - Carlton/LWT
1CW - Westcountry
1CC - Central
1GR - Grampian
1A - Anglia
1U - UTV
1C - Channel
1H1 - HTV Wales
1H2 - HTV West
1BS - Border Scotland
1BE - Border England
1Y - Yorkshire
1T - Tyne Tees
1M - Meridian

2 - ITV2
SP - Sport
MA
Markymark
Inspector Sands posted:
thegeek posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
*in theory that meant that if they so wished they could have broadcast something different to just one just transmitter. Not sure they ever did though

Regional ads, presumably?

That's what the 4 regions were used for yes, but if they wanted they could switch, say, Sheffield transmitter to region 1 and everywhere else to regions 2, 3 or 4 and broadcast something different to Sheffield.

In theory at least, why they'd want to I don't know.


They used that facility in anger when new transmitters came on stream (after the initial March 97 launch) on 'trade test'. Until the official service date, the transmitter would radiate a version of C5 with the ads stripped out, and a caption explaining it was a test and liable to interruptions etc

Newer posts