The BBCi Channel
The Teletext Channel
The Four Text Channel
The NTL Text Channel
The ITV Text+ Channel So you can press text or the Red Button.
BBC Parliament (Because it's audio only I think)
TV Travel Shop
ITN News Channel (Because of their short hours)
A couple of the ITV Select Channels (Because they are way behind Sky Box Office and Front Row and when they leave Select they just got to Sky Movies within a month)
Taste CFN, Wellbeing and Two Way TV (Gone)
Replace them with:-
VH1
Sky News
UK Food/UK Drama (On one channel)
The History Channel
Another Discovery Channel
Nickelodeon and Paramount on their own.
Challenge TV
Bravo
Living
Sky Cinema
Possibly: The Disney Channel
That is what is needed to save ITV Digital
GR
thegreenfairy
I agree the text services should be available 'piggybacked' onto the main channel - but this would not save any banwidth so no extra channels could be broadcast - also,mostof the channels you mention are either alreadyon the way out/gone - or not on ITV Digital,like the text channels,ITN or TV Travel Shop
Disney! I forgot about Disney. Swapping FilmFour out in favour of the Disney Channel would get their subscriptions up. Although is this possible? I presume filmfour is on the D3&4 multiplex wheras Disney would have to go onto one of the 3 allready crammed ITV Digital multiplexes so bandwidth wouldn't be saved.
Text services take up only a small amount of space. You'd probably have to take all of them off just to gain the space to fit on one more channel (and then you still couldn't use this space because the text services are split over different multiplexes).
What they need is more multiplexes. I can't believe there isn't space to fit at least one more on.
LS
Larry Scutta
Quote:
stegranadaitv1 on 11:01 pm on Dec. 31, 2001
I didn't vote because I wasn't sure.
They should get rid of
The BBCi Channel
The Teletext Channel
The Four Text Channel
The NTL Text Channel
The ITV Text+ Channel So you can press text or the Red Button.
BBC Parliament (Because it's audio only I think)
TV Travel Shop
ITN News Channel (Because of their short hours)
A couple of the ITV Select Channels (Because they are way behind Sky Box Office and Front Row and when they leave Select they just got to Sky Movies within a month)
Taste CFN, Wellbeing and Two Way TV (Gone)
Replace them with:-
VH1
Sky News
UK Food/UK Drama (On one channel)
The History Channel
Another Discovery Channel
Nickelodeon and Paramount on their own.
Challenge TV
Bravo
Living
Sky Cinema
Possibly: The Disney Channel
That is what is needed to save ITV Digital
Shame that none of the channels you suggest getting rid of are ITV Digital channels (they are on the BBC, ITV and SDN multiplexes).
And the plan is also flawed because text and audio channels take up less bandwidth than a TV channel and some of the above are only part time.
Getting other channels on ITV won't help them that much, other than for people that can't get either DSAT or DCAB due torestrictions, who will pay a couple of quid less a month and get about a 1/5 of the channels and worse picture quality.
The government won't need to do a buy out as when they go bankrupt/close the muxes will just go back to the ITC and [hopefully] they will lease them on a channel by channel basis.
AW
aztec west
i think the only way itv digital will survive will be if they drop the existing service and become a free to air service. all the free to air channels would be on it such as itv2, sky news, etc. it would also be a better option for those who aren't keen on digital telly as it is.
stegranadaitv1 on 12:01 am on Jan. 1, 2002
I didn't vote because I wasn't sure.
Replace them with:-
VH1
Sky News
UK Food/UK Drama (On one channel)
The History Channel
Another Discovery Channel
Nickelodeon and Paramount on their own.
Challenge TV
Bravo
Living
Sky Cinema
Possibly: The Disney Channel
That is what is needed to save ITV Digital
Another problem is that ITV Digital doesn´t own the rights of many of these channels. Many of the rights were bought exclusively by BSkyB. And I don´t know if ITV Digital has the money to buy the rights to show them from BSkyB.
DR
drjones
If ITV-D did fail and the frequencies fall back to the ITC, no other private company (in their right mind) would want them for digital broadcasts, knowing that GMG/Carlton failed with all their expertes behind them.
If ITV-D did go under, the government would have to take over (IMHO) because they wish to switch off analog terestrial, and it would (in theory) be part of their plan for a service to those who cannot get DSAT or DCAB due to restrictions
Anyway not that it bothers me - from the end of this month - we will no longer have our dodgy ITV-D box and subscription, as we have been given a confirmed installation date for our new DCAB service - at last!
The other thing that everybody forgets is that ITV Digital is losing money, but Sky is losing a lot more! Back in the early 90's it was losing money at an amazing rate, but they held on and kept it going until it made money.
ITV Digital will be a success in the long term, especially when everybody has to have a digital TV set (there will come a time soon when analogue Tvs will stop being sold). All their investors have to do is hold on and think about the long term rather than the short term.
That's very true, Sky was losing a fortune - and still is losing a hell of a lot, although I think it's expected to be in profit in the not too distant future.
The big difference between Sky going under in its early years and ITV Digital going under is that if Sky went under then... big deal. Sky had no-one else to worry about, it wasn't operating the majority of Britain's most viewed TV channel and didn't need to worry about its other interests because it didn't actually have any.
Carlton and Granada have a massive responsibility to uphold some sort of standards on ITV1 and if they're losing money hand over fist then it puts the quality of output on ITV1 into serious doubt.