Why wasn't ITV on Sky Digital in the early days?

We had three ITV regions at home, London, Southern, and Midlands

The time-shift thing was really handy (particularly pre VCRs)
There were programmes that I would not have seen with just one region

Fireball XL5 (ATV only)
WKPR Cincinatti (ATV/Central only)
Tiswas (early series) ATV only,
The Time Tunnel (Thames only)
Foreign Language movies (Southern only)
Saturday Scene and 'Our Show' (LWT only, later Southern too I think)

All the primary regions were there from day one, including HTV West and Wales, and Border Eng and Scotland

http://www.lpilsley.co.uk/skyitv.htm

Also confirms noggin's point. ITV 1 was FTV, ITV 2 was subs only

We all grew up wanting to tune in the different ITV regions when atmospherics gave you the chance and then when it was possible via the add channels on Sky, it wasn't that much long when the majority of the ITV regions would have generic branding.

On a slightly different note, I remember around this time, you could push the red button when the local news was on the BBC and you was able to watch the local news in 3 different regions. Anyone else remember or is it me going mad again?

Yes, before the BBC1 regions were available on satellite, for a while - a year or so? - they came up with a compromise when the four biggest regions outside London - West Midlands, North West, Yorkshire and South - were on the red button, so you could watch them via that method. Then when they all came to Sky, that was obviously abandoned.

The red button regions didn't happen until at least 2002. I don't think it lasted that long before all the regional versions started,maybe 6 months.

I can't remember what happened with UK Today, I think that ended when the red button started and from then on BBC London became the default 'sustaining' region (as it was pre-digital, albeit as South East)

Suppose in the light of UKTV virgin this debate helps the discussion in that thread as this is a time when something quite similar was happening for very different reasons I know but all the samev

The 5 regional programmes at 6:30pm were introduced on the red button on the last week of January 2002. I believe they were taken off for Wimbledon coverage that year. All of the other bulletins were replaced by London. UK Today finished the Friday before the change. All the regions appeared on satellite by June 2003.

Back to 2002 this was a promo that proceeded North West Tonight...

Yes, I remember that. Careful of course not to mention Sky by name. Sally Taylor on South Today
referred to finally being available on 'Dee Sat', which would have had almost every viewer wondering WTF she was on about !

This reminds me of the FTV card saga. When Sky Digital launched, you could buy an unsubsidised box, without a subscription package. That was fine, except you had no access to FTV encrypted services, notably the BBC, and C4 (I can't remember what the initial situation was with C5). The BBC and C4 funded an FTV
card scheme, where you could ring a helpline, and they'd send you a Sky viewing card paired to your box and postcode. Not many used the service, because of course most punters had bought their box with a subs package, so BBC and C4 were 'thrown in'. However, if you cancelled your Sky sub, (which folk did once the minimum term was up) your Sky card simply converted itself to an FTV card. No problem. Until 2003, when Sky decided to replace all viewing cards. This inconveniently coincided with the BBC going FTA on Astra 2D, and they said they would withdraw from the FTV card scheme, leaving just C4 (and C5 ?) to pay for it, which they opted not to. (ITV had never contributed to it, which is another story) . There was a flurry (of the technically savvy) of FTV card requests to the helpline before the closing date (July 31st 2003 IIRC).

There were loopholes though. One I used was a PAYV Adult channel called POUT. If you registered with them, they'd send you a viewing card, that was essentially an FTV card. Being PAYV, you didn't actually pay for their service, unless you phoned up to spend an evening watching them with a box of tissues. That card saw me through the next five years, at which point I went for Freesat

Yes - the UK Today sustaining service ended when Red Button regions started.

Yes - BBC One and Two (and BBC Choice before BBC Two) England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all FTV but postcode restricted to cards registered in their home countries.

** EDIT - BBC Choice wasn't nation-restricted - I remember watching all four national variants... **

The BBC had 'special' cards that let you watch any of the 8 channels on hidden channel numbers. The same was also true of Red Button feeds - they could be viewed on channel numbers too with the right card, so you could monitor them without having to navigate an application (or prior to an application being launched)

The BBC used FTV post code restriction because a number of sports deals then in place for BBC Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were only for their territories, and not UK-wide. When they introduced FTA broadcasts on Astra 2D there were occasionally times when those sports were not available and a holding caption was broadcast pushing viewers to terrestrial. However as this also meant Sky viewers lost these programmes, the rights agreements were renegotiated at the earliest opportunity I believe.

They still offer this - £254 for a SkyHD box and dish (installed), or £25 for a FTV viewing card. Apparently you need the card to watch Channel 4 HD and Channel 5 - I'm not near my box to see if they disappear if I take the card out.

Choice wasn't restricted, you could, and I did watch all four versions. A recall a certain Christine Bleakley
who was on Choice-NI as an in-vision continuity announcer.