ITV considering subscription-only route

Freddie59

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/latest.html

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/90506/ITV-to-charge-its-viewers-3

ITV to go subscription only?

Another month - another media service in trouble - this time, ITV.

In early March, we saw ITV's pre-tax profits drop by 41% and plans to cut another 600 jobs, scale down regional operations, as well as sell off Friends Reunited.

According to a story in the Express, ITV's only salvation may be a shift to a subscription model. This would see them vanish as a free-to-view channel, shifting to Sky and Virgin as a pay-to-view channel. The report claims that viewers would be prepared to pay £2.50 a month for ITV (compared to the £12 a month licence fee for the BBC).

Nothing's decided yet, but it seems stations like ITV, Channel 4 and Five may have to start taking drastic steps to survive the slump.

byte

Dunno if this will happen. Don't they have a stake in FreeSat? Unless they opt for having their extra channels (ITV2, 3, etc) as subscription channels.

I wonder what viewers are prepared to pay £2.50 a month just for ITV?

Maybe they should stop trying to have crap spread across 4 channels, and just concentrate on one half-decent channel instead...

snaps

Whats this an Aprils fools? ITV going as a subscription channel? I highly doubt it? Who will pay? What happens with the UK freeview system?

ynotdu

snaps wrote: »

Whats this an Aprils fools? ITV going as a subscription channel? I highly doubt it? Who will pay? What happens with the UK freeview system?

Afraid to say this rumour has been around for a while now.The latest thinking I have heard is they Might keep I T V 1 fta and rescramble I.T.V 2,3,4@ 50p a month as a test,I strongly doubt it also unless U.K Govt reverse analouge switch off dates,It may be a who blinks first scenario if I.T.V can prove they cannot afford the digital switchover but by All accounts itv are up there without a padel

regarding freesat/freeview If they cannot pay the bills it will be a case of All fair in love and war I think ;-(

Foggy43

Not so long ago word in the 'City of London' was ITV were loosing 50% of their advertising revenue. there were to be job losses. No word since.
We are frequently being told we do not realize how bad this recession is. Freesat is something we all welcomed. It needs money to keep it going. I'm sure it will be studied by the cut back committees.

Personally I feel Freesat is needed as a back up to Freeview. It may even become more popular than Freeview.

Capt'n Midnight

Will the monkey be getting his old job back ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITV_Digital

Top Up TV seem to have lost 1/4 viewers last year
What is the uptake of top up TV in the UK

The most recent quarterly Ofcom Digital Progress Report stated that the aggregated Top Up TV Anytime and Setanta 1 subscriber numbers on the digital terrestrial television system stood at 300,000 for the second quarter of 2008. This compares with a subscriber total of 400,000 for the first quarter of 2008 thus indicating an overall loss of 100,000 subscribers.

Onikage

Foggy43 wrote: »

Personally I feel Freesat is needed as a back up to Freeview. It may even become more popular than Freeview.

Cheaper to run too.

To ITV going pay-tv, all I can say is good luck with that. April fools?

byte

MOD Edit: Moved this thread to Broadcasting, as it's not specific to satellite platform.

ynotdu

Onikage wrote: »

Cheaper to run too.

To ITV going pay-tv, all I can say is good luck with that. April fools?

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellite/daily-satellite-broadcast-industry-news/146791-itv-should-charge-its-viewers-%A33.html

Koloman

Can't see this happening. It's just an attempt by ITV to frighten the horses so to speak. They want the British Goverment to loosen the regulations on what services they have to provide to the public. They have to provide public service content for their "Channel 3" licence. Programmes like regional news and documentary's are very expensive to produce and they want shot of these.

By threatening to go pay per view, they won't have these obligations as they won't be free to air any more. Michael Grade is a wiley man and he will get his way in the end and ITV will be much the poorer for it I'm afraid.

snaps

How are the Irish channels looking in this reccession?

watty

They would need to charge about €5 a channel to offset losses in advertising by being NOT free to air.

Also a huge outcry from number of people that would overnight lose ITV. I doubt this is real.

Elmo

It won't happen. Reduce the number of channels or the number of hours.

RTÉ, TV3 and TG4 will all see their audience go as more and more people here stop paying Sky Digital Subscriptions and yet still receive the main British channels.

Pay TV is dead bar Events and Sports and perhaps Sky Boxoffice type channels.

Elmo

snaps wrote: »

How are the Irish channels looking in this reccession?

Less money being spent on advertising. TV3 complaining about the Dual Funding of RTÉ but TV3 still seem to be pressing ahead with plans for a 3rd station.

Boxer well we will see how that will go, as I said pay TV is dead IMO.

snaps

Elmo wrote: »

Less money being spent on advertising. TV3 complaining about the Dual Funding of RTÉ but TV3 still seem to be pressing ahead with plans for a 3rd station.

Boxer well we will see how that will go, as I said pay TV is dead IMO.

You'll be surprised how many more new subs sky are getting. I cannot see anybody paying for a national comercial broadcaster like ITV. If it does go pay tv, i would hazzard a guess we shall loose it here in Ireland like it wasnt available before on an Irish sub.

Elmo

snaps wrote: »

You'll be surprised how many more new subs sky are getting. I cannot see anybody paying for a national comercial broadcaster like ITV. If it does go pay tv, i would hazzard a guess we shall loose it here in Ireland like it wasnt available before on an Irish sub.

ITV is available through UTV.

I don't care how many new subs there are what I would be worried about is people stopping the subscribtions due to financial issues, which would lead to the loss of all Irish Channels from their satellite.

Capt'n Midnight

Elmo wrote: »

ITV is available through UTV. TV3

fyp.

Elmo

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

fyp.

what does this TLA mean?

UTV is available on a UPC subscrition and other cable operators.

snaps

UTV as far as i know wasnt available on sky when it was a subscription channel (FTV) channel. Yes it was available on NTL etc along with channel 4, but not on Irish subs on sky.

That was one of cable tv's selling points at the time having UTV and ch4

icdg

This rumour has been around for while. The main thing that would scupper it - aside from the massive loss of advertising revenue - would be that ITV would suddenly lose any entitlement it had to the 103 EPG position on Sky and 3 position on Freeview - and you can be pretty darn sure Sky would boot it down to the 200s (or at least to ITV2's current slot, 118) as fast as it could. (It could probably remain on 103 on Virgin Media if it enough paid for it). It would also lose the right to have half a mutliplex on DTT, though this would probably not effect it until the next time it comes for Digital 3 & 4 to renew their licence.

Freddie59

snaps wrote: »

You'll be surprised how many more new subs sky are getting. I cannot see anybody paying for a national comercial broadcaster like ITV. If it does go pay tv, i would hazzard a guess we shall loose it here in Ireland like it wasnt available before on an Irish sub.

The reality is that devices like Sky+ and Digital+ are killing adverts. I never, ever watch a live programme anymore. Just wait until it's long enough in - and zap the ads. I wouldn't agree that Pay TV is dead. If anything it will get stronger. The technology is driving it. And Mr. Murdoch.;)

ynotdu

snaps wrote: »

You'll be surprised how many more new subs sky are getting. I cannot see anybody paying for a national comercial broadcaster like ITV. If it does go pay tv, i would hazzard a guess we shall loose it here in Ireland like it wasnt available before on an Irish sub.

Hi.
quick reply as i,m only on for a while

Subs increasing for Sky but packages being being reduced,read this on a realible site that many are downgrading their existing package and new subscribers are going for the cheaper options.

Elmo

Freddie59 wrote: »

The reality is that devices like Sky+ and Digital+ are killing adverts. I never, ever watch a live programme anymore. Just wait until it's long enough in - and zap the ads. I wouldn't agree that Pay TV is dead. If anything it will get stronger. The technology is driving it. And Mr. Murdoch.;)

You can get freeview and freesat with plus or some variant.

Capt'n Midnight

Elmo wrote: »

what does this TLA mean?

Fixed your post
point being that down here, TV3 can be got without a subscription, so a lot of people will not opt to pay again for the same thing

just gotta be a joke because a lot of people may cut back on expenses/not take on new ones at this time unless you have a must see hook like sports

RAI scramble the satellite signal for some stuff that they only have teresterial rights too, can't see ITV doing this either

ynotdu

Freddie59 wrote: »

The reality is that devices like Sky+ and Digital+ are killing adverts. I never, ever watch a live programme anymore. Just wait until it's long enough in - and zap the ads. I wouldn't agree that Pay TV is dead. If anything it will get stronger. The technology is driving it. And Mr. Murdoch.;)

The world and its brother calls him Mr Murdoch

Guess it,s because He makes future leaders offers they Cant refuse:)

He has got to the stage now were if He is owed money People wake up with a horse,s head beside them,Two days after ignoring the I will send the boys around bill !

I think he is strung out on his ownership rights to Marlon Brando playing the Godfather !

Woops got to go My isp have just informed Me this is My last chance not to have My goolies whipped off if I criticise That Wonderful,fabulous,endearing,good looking Man.Mr Murdoch !:D

Freddie59

ynotdu wrote: »

The world and its brother calls him Mr Murdoch

Guess it,s because He makes future leaders offers they Cant refuse:)

He has got to the stage now were if He is owed money People wake up with a horse,s head beside them,Two days after ignoring the I will send the boys around bill !

I think he is strung out on his ownership rights to Marlon Brando playing the Godfather !

Woops got to go My isp have just informed Me this is My last chance not to have My goolies whipped off if I criticise That Wonderful,fabulous,endearing,good looking Man.Mr Murdoch !:D

:D

Well, all I can say is that if you told someone 12 months ago that bank shares in Ireland would be trading a 9c.......we live in a very fluid environment. Nothing is safe.