ITV is in talks with Sky over moving their digital channels ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 from the Freeview platform over to Sky’s pay platform.
ITV’s in a bad way at the moment – it’s suffering heavily from the decline in ad revenue, and has had to lay off a number of staff, sell off assets and look to reduce their locally-produced news content. The move to a subscription service would be a way of generating some much needed revenue, as Sky would give ITV a cut of the subscription fee they charge their users.
Around 17 million households reportedly now have Freeview, compared to Sky’s 9 million subscribers.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Do they really think that people in these times are prepared to pay now for something that was free when basically nit's just repeats?
June 4th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
If they move to a platform with half the potential audience,maybe the advertisers will demand to pay less.Thus ITV will be shooting themselves in the foot.Why not just have 1 or 2 less channels,they are mostly repeats anyway.
June 5th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Get rid of ITV 3 and ITV4, as they are just repeats. Keep ITV 2 as during the day granted is mainly repeats but in the evening you can get some quality telly. so by getting rid of 2 channels, ITV will be saving millions.
June 5th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
free view will go down the pan if they remove itv1 ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 from the Freeview and people may by sky digital
June 8th, 2009 at 5:21 am
i think it's a bad move cause half the channels on freeview are rubbish such as smile tv smile tv2 shopping channels rabbit-chat and so on alot have freeview and buying freeview each day and itv has some good things on itv2 is ok but itv2 is repets you should look into putting more channels on worth watching ie music channels film channels and take the rubbish one off mark 31 midlands
June 10th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I for one don't have sky and had no desire to purchase it either. So if ITV does move I will purchase sky. DON'T THINK SO
June 11th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
As Freeview is at the centre of free digital TV I don't believe the ITV licence conditions would allow it to leave.
June 13th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
On 7 June The Sunday Times business section had an interview with Michael Grade, ITV Chairman, which suggested that ITV were having second thoughts about the decision to move away from Freeview. Hope so, as I quite enjoy some of the series repeats on ITV3.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
So what! Its tripe anyway and no loss. ITV is going to the wall and no move to Sky can save it!
June 16th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I agree the amount of repeats on these channels is terrible,but ITV 2 really sucks big time!It's chav tv!Peter Andre and Katie Price,more Britain's got talent,It really is rubbish,I however am clearly in a minority.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Freeview and Freesat are the main vehicles for providing digital content after analogue is switched off. ITV are one of the main partners in both. If they now pull these channels they will alienate a lot of people – it would be tempting to avoid ITV1 in protest if they do this (or at least zap the adverts!)
June 20th, 2009 at 5:27 am
Let's boycott ITV, use people power. I am sick and tired of being ripped off in the UK. We pay more in UK for almost everything, why pay for repeats on TV. Watch BBC, C4 and C5!
Power to the people!
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Most of the repeats on ITV3 & 4 were made 20-30 years ago.So have been paid for many times over since then.It only needs someone sitting in a control room pressing the 'play' button,to run both channels.So where's the huge cost involved?
June 24th, 2009 at 9:19 am
It's absolutely rediculous.!If they leave the 8.5% of rural homes that only get half freeview,ie 18 or 20 channels public service muxes no commercial muxes A B OR C will recieve even less.!! CRAZY!!.
July 5th, 2009 at 8:15 am
why don't they start by selling off the dead +1 channel they have for itv2 they could raise some money from that and let another station broadcast on freeview
July 8th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
The idea off freeview is that people who cannot afford to pay more money can have broad pick ofchannels to watch,other than just bbc1/2 itv1,@channel4/5 ,most have to get different arial,to receive digital,and really cannot afford sky .virgin.so please try to keep costs down for us ,old folk ,katy2katy ,
July 29th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Are they Nuts ?
Advertisers will pay less if they move and I for one will not be blackmailed into getting Sky as I am very happy with the Freeview service .
I do view ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 on occasions but I really don't like the idea that I should change all my units just to suit ITV.
If you recall before Freeview { ONdigital } ITV was making a fortune from their adverts so really its shows bad money management if they are struggling now – OFCOM should jump all over them.
August 4th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
What about the likes of me who lives in a listed building so cannot have a Sky dish and in a pretty remote spot so no one will lay a cable to my home. Why should I be deprived of TV programes and sport just because of where I choose to live. It simply is not fair.
August 15th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
ITV now have four channels and yet they continue to show the same rubbish over and over again. You would think with over 50 years of material to choose from we would get a varied mix of classic repeats and shows not seen on TV for decades. Not so!
I doubt very much people will be rushing to buy a satellite dish to see endless repeats of the Champions and Randall & Holkirk..
Come on ITV you are sitting on a gold mine of material. Tap into it
August 31st, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Buy Sky if ITV moves . Don't be daft why waste money?
September 1st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
The channels are just repeats that you know word for word ,a lot of the film's transmitted an hour later or earlier the next day or so anyway ..
Would not pay for sky so no extra revenue from me at those prices & stuck into a contract by them !
Cant they see people themselfs are having to cut corners this day & age with this climate .
NO THANKS