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| ITV talked to Sky re ITV digitals becoming pay channels |
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| Written by Robert Piercy | ||||||
| Tuesday, 02 June 2009 12:42 | ||||||
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ITV has been in discussions with BSkyB about switching its digital channels from free-to-air to pay channels.
The plan being discussed was for ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 becoming part of Sky's pay packages. One option was ITV paying Sky a nominal fee for encryption with ITV getting a slice of revenues in return. However, this would mean ITV taking its digital channels off Freeview and thereby loosing half of its total audience reach. BSkyB has a 17.5% stake in ITV but it has been told to reduce this to 7.5% If ITV did return to pay broadcasting then ITV would also have to do a seperate deal with Virgin Media. ITV has built up strong audiences for its digital channels since going fully free-to-air in 2002 with ITV2 becoming the most watched digital channel and the sixth most watched channel in the UK. Revenues from its digital channels stood at £242 million pounds. However, ITV made a pre-tax £2.73 billion loss last year and is facing having to sell off assets such as Friends Reunited and SDN, the multiplex it owns on DTT. Advertising revenues are predicted to be down by 1/6 over the first half of 2009.
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