Page 1 of itv Digital near to collapse

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,672358,00.html (copy and paste whole link)

10 days and they reckon that`s yer lot. Damned shame as I`ve been with them since the start.

This item was edited on Saturday, 23rd March 2002, 17:56

Hey monkey...................were f***d

A real pity that Sky will be more or less unchallenged from now on.
Channel lineup never really competed with Sky.
This kind of operation requires large billions to become established. It was never resourced properly and Sky outmarketed them.

Serves em fookin right, they bit off more than they could chew? Expecting everyone who loves footie to ditch their digiboxes and go for ITV digital. The gamble was never going to pay off, any dumb fool could see that!!

Check out this site. May be they should rename it `The Official Site`, it tells more truth than the current one.

http://uk.geocities.com/itvdigitaltv/index.htm

This item was edited on Sunday, 24th March 2002, 12:00

I have the answer!!!!! Bring in Enron`s bosses and inverstors to take over ;)

Regards
Max Knight

I got pre-pay one year last January. I think they have forgotton about me as its stilll running.

Anyway, did they really think people would PAY to watch division 1, 2 ans even 3 games???

SKY will go to the league abd say here £100m for football rights next year, and the leauge will have to say, YES PLEASE!!

an important issue that hasnt been mentioned, which i think is also contributing to its downfall is the fact that the system has been cracked and theyre losing millions in subscriptions due to everyone getting gold/chipped cards. at the end of the day, its a crap system! the interface is awful, there are under a third of skys channels and is more expensive. the best man will win.....

ITV/On Digital was clearly a white elephant from the beginning. They didn`t have the bandwidth to compete with Sky`s channel lineup, and weren`t competitive on price either. The recent ads with the monkey were too little, too late - great advertising for a s***e product.

To be honest, I think ITVD more than anything has hindered the growth of digital TV in this country. The government should never have allowed a pay TV service to launch on terrestrial - it just confuses ordinary viewers who now think "digital TV=pay TV" and have no incentive to switch from analogue. The vast majority of people have no desire to pay a monthly subscription to watch television, no matter how good it is.

When ITVD goes under, I hope the DTT multiplexes will be kept free-to-air, and that a whole range of cheap FTA digital equipment (TVs, VCRs etc.) will follow on the heels of this £100 Pace box that`s coming out. Any future marketing should emphasise the fact that digital terrestrial is FREE and doesn`t (and never will) require a subscription. They could even include a dead monkey in the campaign (RIP Monkey!)

Anyway, look how far off course the digital project has drifted. Back in 1998 they were talking about switching the analogue transmitters off by 2006. We`re already half way there and 70% of the country is still watching analogue! (Probably 80-90% if you count sets in bedrooms and the like.)

Mike

I had OnDigital prior to getting Sky Digital......There was no comparison between the two services in terms of channels for equivalent costs.

My question is, if ITV digital goes down, will ITV1 and ITV2 channels be removed from the Sky Digital package?

They only just arrived back in November, and I don`t fancy having to watch them on terrestrial again!

Anyone know the position on this?

Regards

MJ