(originally ''British Digital Broadcasting'' with
BSkyB ) was a British terrestrial
Digital Television Broadcaster , which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network as '''ONdigital''' in 1998 and briefly re-branded as ITV Digital in
July 2001 . Its main shareholders were
Carlton Communications Plc and
Granada Plc .
Digital terrestrial television (DTT) started in the UK in
1998 . Six
Multiplexes were set up, with three of them allocated to the existing
Analogue broadcasters. The other three multiplexes were auctioned off. A consortium of
Carlton Television ,
Granada Television and
BSkyB won the auction, and set up ONdigital. BSkyB was later forced to withdraw on competition grounds. From winning the licence to launching the world's first DTT service, ONdigital was given one year by the
Independent Television Commission (ITC). In addition to launching audio and video services they also led the specification of an industry-wide advanced interactive engine (based on
MHEG-5 ). This was an open standard that was then used by all broadcasters on DTT.
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http://wwwmediatelcouk/newsline/1998/09sep/28/ondightm
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ONdigital Announces Channel Packages And Launch Date
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1998-09-28
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http://wwwe-repaircouk/story36htm
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ONdigital's New television Internet service
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2000-09-18
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From the launch date, however, the service was quickly losing money. Aggressive marketing by
BSkyB for their own digital service,
Sky Digital , made the ONdigital offer look unattractive. The new digital satellite service provided a free dish,
Digibox , installation and around 200 channels for the same price as ONdigital - ONdigital's pricing had been set to compare with the older Sky analogue service of 20 channels. ONdigital also failed to realise that Sky had cast off its downmarket image and believed there was considerable public antipathy towards Sky (and
Rupert Murdoch ); but this appeared to matter much less than they had hoped.
Additional problems were caused by the choice of
64QAM broadcast mode, coupled with far weaker than expected broadcast power, (meaning that the signal was weak in many areas), an incomprehensible pricing structure (comprising many menu options), a poor quality subscriber management system (badly adapted from
Canal+ ), a paper magazine TV guide whereas BSkyB had provided an
Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), insufficient technical customer services, and much
Signal Piracy because there was no return path and no requirement (as with BSkyB) to connect the
Set-top Box 's modem to a phone line.
Another problem was that the set-top boxes were sold in high street stores and supermarkets at a price that included - in theory - the set top box on loan and the first year's subscription package. As the call to activate the viewing card did not require any bank details, many ONdigital boxes which were technically on loan were at unverifiable addresses.
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http://newsbbccouk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1879859stm
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Tempting the digital refuseniks
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2002-03-19
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BBC News
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Finally, Carlton and Granada had chosen not to employ ONdigital management and staff directly, so many people were on short term contracts and key people left with no notice.
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http://newsbbccouk/1/hi/business/1868140stm
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TV firm sues over $1bn 'piracy' loss
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2002-03-12
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BBC News
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http://newsbbccouk/1/hi/entertainment/new_media/1433671stm
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Ondigital relaunches as ITV Digital
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2001-07-11
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BBC News
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http://wwwsportbusinesscom/news/101067/itv-digital-gets-support-from-smg
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ITV Digital gets support from SMG
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2001-09-28
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Sport Business
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ITV Digital also ran a famous advertising campaign involving the
Comedian Johnny Vegas and a knitted
Monkey (voiced by
Ben Miller ). A replica knitted monkey could be obtained by signing up to ITV Digital. Because the monkey could not be obtained without signing up to the service, a popular market for second-hand monkeys developed. At one time original ITV Digital Monkeys were fetching several hundred pounds on
EBay , and even knitting patterns delivered by email were sold for several pounds. In early 2007 the knitted monkey and Johnny Vegas have reappeared in an advert for
PG Tips , which includes a reference to ITV Digital's downfall.
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http://newsbbccouk/1/hi/uk/5109254stm
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Football League loses damages bid
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2006-06-23
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BBC News
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A consortium made up of the
BBC ,
BSkyB and
Crown Castle International was granted ITV Digital's old broadcasting license, and launched the
Freeview service on
October 30 2002 , offering 30 free-to-air TV channels and 20 free-to-air radio channels including several interactive channels such as
BBCi and
Teletext but no subscription or premium services. Those followed on
March 31 ,
2004 when
Top Up TV began broadcasting eleven
Pay TV channels in
Timeshare d broadcast slots.
During 2002, ITV Digital's liquidators started to ask customers to return set top boxes or pay a £39.99 fee. This deteriorated from a request to a plea, with one liquidator's representative speaking to Nick Ferarri on
LBC 97.3 to justify why they wanted the money, but when challenged by the presenter to ask 'how are you going to force people to return these boxes, are you going to employ collection agencies?' the response was a feeble 'please I just want them back'. Had the move been successful, this would threaten to undermine the fledgling Freeview service as most digital terrestrial receivers were former ONdigital and ITV Digital units. Carlton and Granada stepped in and paid £2.8m to have the boxes stay with their customers, as at the time the ITV companies received a discount on their licence payments based on the number of digital homes they had converted. Second hand ONdigital receivers are widely available from sources such as eBay and are fully compatible with the successor Freeview system (and also with Top Up TV). They can be an attractive means of getting a cheap
DVB-T -compatible receiver but have some drawbacks: they are slower than more modern boxes with faster processors (ONdigital receivers often take several seconds to change channel for example) and lack support for the full Freeview Electronic Programme Guide (as this feature was introduced well after the ONdigital receiver software was written). The receiver software can also be buggy, causing the boxes lock up and refuse to respond to keypresses on the remote control.
The three multiplexes that were run by ITV Digital remained blank until a week or so before Freeview's launch. However, E4 and FilmFour continued broadcasting for over two weeks after the shutdown. Strangely however, E4 carried subtitles until the placeholder was deleted in September 2002. Most of the original ITV Digital channel placeholders and
LCN s were kept until Freeview's replaced them, leaving large gaps between channels.
ITV Digital operated out of
Marco Polo House , the south London building that had once housed the lavish headquarters of the ill-fated
British Satellite Broadcasting , and had call centres located in
Pembroke Dock ,
Plymouth and
Northern Ireland .
Correct as of April 30 2002 , the day before most pay services ceased
- ITV Sport Channel
- Sky Sports 1
- Sky Sports 2
- Sky Sports 3
- Sky MovieMax
- Sky Premier
- Sky One
- Cartoon Network
- Carlton Cinema
- British Eurosport
- Granada Plus
- Men & Motors
- UK Gold
- MTV
- Discovery Channel
- Play UK
- UK Style
- Nickelodeon / Paramount Comedy
- FilmFour
- E4
- UK Horizons
This is a list of ex-ITV and ONdigital set-top boxes. The boxes are generally more cumbersome than more modern offerings, and
MHEG services run noticibly slower. All boxes used similar software, in that a unified interface and design was used between all models.
Top Up TV provided the most recent update in
2004 which upgraded minor technicalities with encryption services.
Carlton and Granada, the owners of ON/ITV Digital created a selection of channels, which formed some of the core content of channels available via the service, these were:
- 1997
- --- 25 June 1997 - The ITC award the sole DTT broadcast licence to British Digital Broadcasting
- --- 20 December 1997 - The ITC award the three Pay TV digital multiplex licences to BDB
- 1998
- --- 29 July 1998 - BDB rebrand as ONdigital
- --- 15 November 1998 - Formal broadcasting begins
- 2000
- --- 1 May 2000 - Formal broadcasting of Pay-per-view (PPV) service ONrequest begins
- 2001
- --- 11 July 2001 - ONdigital rebrand as ITV Digital
- --- 22 August 2001 - PPV service ONrequest rebrands as ITV Select
- 2002
- --- 27 March 2002 - Placed into administration
- --- 1 May 2002 - Pay-TV operations cease
- --- 30 October 2002 - Formal broadcasting of replacement Freeview service begins
