ITV on Sky Digital

The ITV & Sky thing is still a saga at the moment.

Just to clear things up which may have been confusing...

Your set-top box will tune to your regional ITV station on EPG 103.  This will start happening from Late 2001/Early 2002.  Your regional ITV station is defined as the contractor which broadcasts in a specific zone.  For example in Colwyn Bay the local ITV contractor is Granada, even though its in Wales (and HTV have a base there!) etc.  It will work through postcode access only (like BBC, Channel 4)

Regions within a region (eg Anglia, Central, Westcountry etc) will only broadcast their 'main' region within the region.  In the Central region, this would be Central West (from Birmingham).  Therefore only 16 regions will be available.  

Other ITV regions will be soft-encrypted, and either only available through manual tuning, or listed in the EPG in the 900's zone.  I believe, due to contractual issues, the first will be applicable, and unavailable (like BBC1 Nations).  Therefore, you won't be able to view other ITV regions.

For your local news, you won't need to 'press 'tv' then 3' because your local news will already be broadcast.  However if you are in a dual-region (eg Anglia, Westcountry, Central, Tyne Tees) you may need to do this to get your local-local news.

ITV2 will probably not be available on DSat in the first few months.  This will be due to contractual reasons for its programming. (don't forget that N.I and Scotland have their own ITV2 programming serive, therefore this may be different in these areas)

Listing in the EPG will be what Sky & ITV are 'dealing' about at the moment.  Also it is possible that ITV may be only available through subscription to Sky (if a deal is not done).  However, the Government wouldn't be too happy with that.

I've got no idea about cross-over areas, however one suggestion is that the crossover could be determined by when the region started broadcasting (eg. London would be over some of the South-East and Midlands, just because it was the first region to start broadcasting on 22-Sep-55)

I hope this clears up some of the issues!

(C) Mark Snowdon 2001


(Edited by TVArchive at 12:13 am on June 28, 2001)

I think I heard that the only region getting double space is Border which splits about once every year to show a different football match! It's meant to show different local news in Scotland and England but they never bother.

And I assume that a non-Sky digibox wouldn't be able to pick up all the regions?

Good point, would I be right in saying that the Government could force the BBC to allow ITV onto their Smartcard, for those who don't subscribe to Sky?

I'd imagine they probably could because of broadcasting rights. ITV is, after all, a terrestrial service so like C4 and C5 should be made available to all. Not sure where ITV2 stands though.

AFAIK the postcode region will be on channel 103, so for me that will be Granada and then there will be one other channel, the channel which is closest to you on a 900 channel but all others will not be available.
Of course you could just reset the box about 50 times and get the box confused which will allow you to view other regions, it works with BBC One.

R U sure that works? (Heads off to consider trying it)

And what ITV would that mean I get? I am about 70 miles away from both Scottish and Tyne Tees.

You could try but it would probably take about 3 hours!

ITV2 as we all know is not a terrestrial service, and therefore does not get 'preferential' treatment, like BBC, ITV, C4 & C5.

ITV2 may end-up in the mid 200's by the time it starts on DSat (if it does!)

I doubt you would get 'the channel closest to you' as well, this would be pointless, and possibly break certain contracts for the broadcaster concerned.

I feel it will be one ITV broadcaster (your natural one) and that's it.

It would be for people on the borderline for a region in a dual or possibly even triple overlap area.

Tyne Tees & Yorkshire are a good example. If you live in North Yorkshire then you can normally pick up either.

I reckon it will be weird for a lot of people who are used to watching a particular region (as they are in a overlap), and then suddenly they're getting a different one.

Also, in the case of overlap areas, how do they choose which one to put on 103???

I think it's gonna be hard to get it right for everyone, even with another region in the 900's.

I seriously hope they do put the other regions in 900, I especially want to watch the W I D E S C R E E N Carlton Idents!

i cant wait to see the carlton widescreen idents. my region would be very difficult for sky as carlton and anglia cover it in quite some depth.