ITV Digital Day - 20 years on

[MatijaTelevizija]

For reference:

I remember going to the disaster site. And if it was ran by the same people that ran BSB , then no wonder they went down in flames ?

QVC also based themselves there (as the photo shows) They did alright, so the building wasn't completely jinxed

Wait , how did that work ? Did they have some kind of partnership ? ?

[gottago]

I remember going to the disaster site. And if it was ran by the same people that ran BSB , then no wonder they went down in flames ?

QVC also based themselves there (as the photo shows) They did alright, so the building wasn't completely jinxed

Wait , how did that work ? Did they have some kind of partnership ? ?

Just two tenants of the same building, no different to multiple companies being housed in the same office block.

[commseng]

QVC would have been tenants in a building that was well placed and had decent power and connectivity I would imagine.
There is a lot of building sharing that goes on!

[MatijaTelevizija]

On this day in 2001, ONdigital was renamed ITV Digital.

Being reminded of how long ago these things really were happening is freaky cos I even have a son who is a legal adult and younger than even Freeview ?

That was a great gimmick. Shame it didn't catch on.

It kinda did catch on , I think more people know the monkey than actually ITV Digital

I do think though the collapse was ultimately a happy accident - even though the picture quality in SD isn't fantastic there's now a really decent amount of choice available for free.

Exactly , especially the locking “ major “ channels to certain providers only , and the idea of terrestrial pay-TV , was disastrous from the start. Even ITV1 and ITV2 was not on Sky until November 2001 , which was a fatal mistake

[Neil Jones]

Yeah, PG bought Monkey when ITV Digital closed and it's assets were sold off. They used him in ad campaigns for many years afterwards.

The PG Tips thing didn't happen immediately. Monkey took on a life of his own after ITV Digital and was apparently sold in The Gadget Shop after ITV Digital collapsed, then there was a fight for his property rights (as ITV Digital didn't own him, he was effectively an indie "production" for want of a better word. Comic Relief won out apparently rights-wise) and then after being offered his own show on the BBC (which fell through), Monkey started flogging PG Tips a few years after that.

In the meantime he had the whole "Compare the Meerkat" thing where they fleshed him out properly, shifted a load of merchandise and then he sort of vanished again. No doubt Monkey will be back at some point, flogging something else, being more popular that the service he was created to advertise in the first place.

[technologist]

QVC would have been tenants in a building that was well placed and had decent power and connectivity I would imagine.
There is a lot of building sharing that goes on!

Like them now being next door to Red Bee and Discovery … but there is not much power left …

[Inspector Sands]

QVC would have been tenants in a building that was well placed and had decent power and connectivity I would imagine.

I suspect that the main factor behind the choice was because Sky were involved in QVC UK at the start, and owned 20% of it. Sky also had a very well equipped TV facility that was surplus to its requirements

Sky were originally part of the BDB consortium that became onDigital, so it's location might not be a complete coincidence either

[Bluecortina]

On this day in 2001, ONdigital was renamed ITV Digital. Customers were sent stickers to change the branding on their digital boxes and remote controls. Other name changes included ONrequest, which became ITV Select and ONnet, which became ITV Active.

What are your memories of this day?

This photo was taken on the balcony area outside the 2nd floor bar area at Kent House.

[MatijaTelevizija]

On this day in 2001, ONdigital was renamed ITV Digital. Customers were sent stickers to change the branding on their digital boxes and remote controls. Other name changes included ONrequest, which became ITV Select and ONnet, which became ITV Active.

What are your memories of this day?

This photo was taken on the balcony area outside the 2nd floor bar area at Kent House.

Oh , you were there ? What was it like ? ?

[Inspector Sands]

I remember going to the disaster site. And if it was ran by the same people that ran BSB , then no wonder they went down in flames ?

I remember someone from Crown Castle saying that their supposedly resilient diverse paths out of Marcopolo house both went over the same bridge to get across the Thames :twisted:

[Bluecortina]

On this day in 2001, ONdigital was renamed ITV Digital. Customers were sent stickers to change the branding on their digital boxes and remote controls. Other name changes included ONrequest, which became ITV Select and ONnet, which became ITV Active.

What are your memories of this day?

This photo was taken on the balcony area outside the 2nd floor bar area at Kent House.

Oh , you were there ? What was it like ? ?

I think it was just a convenient place for the photo. I don’t think there was much of an OnDigital presence at Kent House, I have a vague recollection of some football programming being produced in Studio 5. (The same studio floor used some time earlier to produce some programming for BSB).

I have a vague memory that Sky were initially involved in OnDigital at the initial onset but that the regulator forbade their participation in the consortium and they had to leave it. Is that right? Setting Sky up in direct competition with OnDigital was a crackers move if so, was nothing learned.

[Bluecortina]

This photo was taken on the balcony area outside the 2nd floor bar area at Kent House.

Oh , you were there ? What was it like ? ?

I think it was just a convenient place for the photo. I don’t think there was much of an OnDigital presence at Kent House, I have a vague recollection of some football programming being produced in Studio 5. (The same studio floor used some time earlier to produce some programming for BSB).

I have a vague memory that Sky were initially involved in OnDigital at the initial onset but that the regulator forbade their participation in the consortium and they had to leave it. Is that right? Setting Sky up in direct competition with OnDigital was a crackers move if so, was nothing learned.

Ps. Edited to add, we were able to purchase cheap reception boxes in the canteen at lunchtime and I think the stickers referenced in earlier posts were an attempt by OnDigital (or whatever it was called by then) to gently take the mickey out of itself, it wasn't a serious promotion.

[Neil Jones]

I have a vague memory that Sky were initially involved in OnDigital at the initial onset but that the regulator forbade their participation in the consortium and they had to leave it. Is that right? Setting Sky up in direct competition with OnDigital was a crackers move if so, was nothing learned.

The ITC forced them out on competition grounds:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/140880.stm - " There have been behind-the-scenes rows between BDB [British Digital Broadcasting, the consortium behind it who launched the service as OnDigital] and BSkyB, which plans its own 150 channel digital launch later [in 1998], much of it dedicated to pay-per-view movies. Originally part of the BDB bid, BSkyB's investment in digital terrestrial TV was vetoed by the Independent Television Commission, although the ITC said its sports and movie programming would be an important incentive for viewers to switch to digital. "

[Larry the Loafer]

I wonder if On/ITV Digital went on to succeed and still be with us, would we have had the digital switchover with no free digital alternative? Or would there have been some cumbersome workaround to have a "free" option akin to Freesat from Sky? Get your handful off FTV channels while having the array of pay channels shoved in your face every time you channel hop.

[Rex]

I actually wonder how things could have been if OnDigital didnt directly compete with Sky and instead opened up as a Sky lite service to the analogue users who werent willing to pay £20-30 a month. Surely trying to charge the same amount as Sky with less content did not work out well, not to mention the cost of subsidising boxes