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ITV Pay TV Plans

Bob The Skutter

Complete Arse Cleft
In Memoriam
ITV have announced they're planning on launching ITV 2, 3 and 4 HD channels as pay channels on Sky later this year, as well as ITV 1 +1 timeshift channel next year. As well as apparently looking in to launching a premium pay channel later too.

From BBC News

ITV is moving into pay-TV after agreeing a deal to launch high definition versions of the ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 channels on Sky.
The move is part of an overall strategy to increase revenues from non-television advertising sources.
Chief executive Adam Crozier said ITV needed to change "substantially".
The news came as the broadcaster reported a pre-tax profit of £97m for the first half of the year, compared with a £105m loss a year ago.
ITV1 HD is already available on Freesat, Freeview, Sky and Virgin.

End Quote Adam Crozier ITV chief executive
ITV2 HD will launch in October, with ITV3 HD and ITV4 HD launching shortly afterwards.
"Pay television has seen continual growth over the last decade and this deal is a great example of how a new, subscription-based launch can complement ITV's existing free-to-air channels," said Mr Crozier.
The broadcaster also said it would launch an ITV1+1 channel in the first quarter of 2011.
 
ITV2 HD - Jordan in High Definition. :barf:

ITV3 HD - Old episodes of Poirot upscaled ? What's the point ? All of their programming is from the 80's and 90's.

The only one I can see any point in is ITV4 as they show Europa League Football games.
 
ITV2 HD - Jordan in High Definition. :barf:

ITV3 HD - Old episodes of Poirot upscaled ?

The only one I can see any point in is ITV4 as they show Europa League Football games.

Well ITV 2 and 4 have their few American imports, ITV 3 has some more recent shows on their too but yeah mostly you're right.

The thing that strikes me as a bit crazy here is it says they've actually made a profit after a few years of losses, so now they're cutting the budget of the main channel? The programming budget is going from £1.1bn to £800m and they expect this to help, how exactly? Investing less in programming will lose them viewers, surely?
 
^I can't really see any more than 10% of their programming across ITV2, 3 and 4 being ready for HD.

I suspect they're gambling that it won't cost them £300m's worth of viewers.

I did see somewhere that they're looking to go after the Dave portion of the market. Maybe a good idea, but then I hope whoever came up with the idea for Dave got a nice pay rise out of it.
 
Yeah, apparently their idea for a premium channel may be more male skewed, but I thought that's what ITV 4 was supposed to be?

To be fair, there's not much on ITV1 that's HD still. It's getting better but most of it is upscaled still.

Well it was only in the last few years they started investing more in programming again and brought it over a billion, seems like it was just starting to pay off and now they're cutting it again... seems like a daft but that's ITV all over.
 
^I can't really see anyone wanting to pay to watch repeats of Randall and Hopkirk, somehow.

Dave works because they source most of their programming from the BBC, who at least try to make something men can watch. They've got a very sound mix of motoring shows during the day and the BBC's stronger panel comedy shows at night.

I'm not sure what ITV make that they could fill a decent schedule with on such a channel.
 
^I think ITV will fall back on their film catalogue some how. It's one of the biggest in the world apparently. Unless they already sold it off. But yeah, ITV make very little of interest to anyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together so I don't know what they could fill a premium channel with, even if it wasn't aimed mostly at men.
 
So they'll be dropping the adverts from the HD channels then?

Nah, they'll just be part of Sky's HD package... I'd assume, which'll mean money from Sky on the basis of how many viewers they get as well as their advertising.
And to be fair, although I don't like it, even Sky Movies and Sky Sports have advertising despite being premium channels.
 
had heard about a Pay TV channel in the romour, but that apparntly not been announced, im really not sure this is going to make them as much money as they hope it will, unless its exclusive to one of the Pay TV platforms.

As for ITV1+1, its taken far too long, and there is nothing on ITV 1.
 
ooh so that means i can watch X Men 2 every day in hd on itv2.
I swear every time i swtich that channel on it is replaying X2.

Not that anything shown on ITV interests me.
 
Loved to see what they are going to put on a premium pay channel.:lol:
I think it's a mistake to cut the money going to programs. They should try can get some shows that will become DVD hits.
 
As long as the SD channels are still free. Dunno what I'd do without my Jeremy Kyle fix.
 
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