ITV Digital Day - 20 years on

[Cassia Tuna]

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?

[Markymark]

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

What are your memories of this day?

Being overwhelmed with ambivalence.

[EeveeSparkles]

The only thing I really remember about it was good old Monkey, who I saw on the PG Tips ads when I was younger.

https://youtu.be/wCk4bRVoDxU

[JAS84]

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.

[James Martin]

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

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.

[MatijaTelevizija]

I was not sure if associating it with ITV was a good idea. And indeed it was not , and the company renamed back to OnDigital after liquidating ?

[JetixFann450]

I love their language in this, telling customers they can "upgrade" with a dinky ol' paper sticker. No wonder they went bust. :lol:

[James2001]

From what I can gather, those stickers wore off the remotes very quickly as well.

[MatijaTelevizija]

I love their language in this, telling customers they can "upgrade" with a dinky ol' paper sticker. No wonder they went bust. :lol:

The people really did believe that at the time though ?

The only thing I really remember about it was good old Monkey, who I saw on the PG Tips ads when I was younger.

https://youtu.be/wCk4bRVoDxU

I had the plush ITV digital monkey but I lost it. Can’t remember if it was official merchandise ( would be strange ) or not though

[Brekkie]

Do wonder if without the ITV Sport deal with the football league whether it would have survived or was it doomed anyway?

I think ultimately in an era when people had either no multichannel TV or Sky it was a tough sell to get people to buy a service which was basically offering the service Sky was leaving behind.

[MatijaTelevizija]

Do wonder if without the ITV Sport deal with the football league whether it would have survived or was it doomed anyway?

I think ultimately in an era when people had either no multichannel TV or Sky it was a tough sell to get people to buy a service which was basically offering the service Sky was leaving behind.

If you mean ITV Digital then it was definitely already doomed based on other factors. It was always had a huge hole built for its own grave. And I still feel that terrestrial pay-TV definittely made no sense ?

[Robertclark125]

But of course, paying Ferrari prices for a Ford killed it off. That is, paying £315 million for the EFL contract, which was worth £50-60 million back then, max, was a bad move.

Let us not forget, that the companies behind ITV Digital, Carlton and Granada, were also those behind BSB, operating out of the same "Marco Polo House" (now demolished) in London.

[Cassia Tuna]

Let us not forget, that the companies behind ITV Digital, Carlton and Granada, were also those behind BSB, operating out of the same "Marco Polo House" (now demolished) in London.

For reference:

[MatijaTelevizija]

Let us not forget, that the companies behind ITV Digital, Carlton and Granada, were also those behind BSB, operating out of the same "Marco Polo House" (now demolished) in London.

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 ?

[Markymark]

Let us not forget, that the companies behind ITV Digital, Carlton and Granada, were also those behind BSB, operating out of the same "Marco Polo House" (now demolished) in London.

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