ITV on Sky digital & Champions league

Andy Mc

When ITV come onto Sky digital I hear that the Champions League coverage will be blacked out. Is there any truth in this. Also I know the official launch is Nov 27th but when does the test service launched and will you be able to tune this in.

_Kaiser_

Because Sky and ITV were unable to come to an agreement regarding Conditional Access (where you only get the ITV region for the area you live in - the same way we only get BBC NI here), ITV have decided to press ahead with a Digital satellite launch anyway, with the result being that all ITV regions will be available Free-To-Air (FTA) to everyone here in ROI, the UK and even mainland Europe.

However because much advertising and (to an extent) programming, is targeted at specific regions, many advertisers are unhappy with this situation and it is also the reason why the Champions League will be unavailable on Sky....however, a "side effect" is that the advertisers are likely to put pressure on both ITV and Sky to reach some kind of resolution to the matter (basically Sky want about £15M more for Conditional Access than ITV are prepared to pay) so having certain programming "blocked" in this manner MAY not go on for too long - or so the rest of us hope anyway!

As for testing, late October/early November has been suggested as a possible start date but don't worry..as soon as it DOES begin, the boards will be flooded with postings no doubt!

Hope this answers some of your questions,

Regards.....

Charles Slane

I could live with having some programmes (ie Champions League) blocked out if it meant I'd have access to all ITV regions. So I'm hoping that ITV and Sky don't reach an agreement (apart from the fact that, although UTV have said they want to be available in ROI on Sky Digital, there was never a statement to say that they definitely would be).