Digital Truce For ITV And Sky

Following months of speculation about on/off negotiations (see ITV And Sky In Carriage Deal Rumour), ITV has finally secured carriage for its flagship and entertainment channels on the Sky platform. The conditional access agreement reached today means ITV1 will be available on channel 103 to Sky Digital’s 5.5m subscribers, in addition to ITV Digital’s 1.4m, with immediate effect. ITV2 will benefit from a 150% increase in distribution when it becomes available on channel 226 in coming days.

Stuart Prebble, ITV’s chief executive, said: “This is good news for satellite viewers, who will be able to watch ITV1 and ITV2 through the Sky Digital EPG with digital quality pictures and full programme information. Its also good for ITV, which benefits from the “digital dividend” which we receive for encouraging digital viewing. Over time ITV will also benefit from revenues from interactive programming and advertising.”

Both the digital services launched late in 1998, but due to the main ITV shareholders, Granada and Carlton, being the owners of what was then ONdigital, ITV was not carried on the Sky platform, which went on to gain considerably more subscribers than ONdigital, thanks to the movement of former Sky analogue customers to the new service.

Recently, the failure, expensive to ITV (see Lack Of Carriage On Digital Satellite Could Lose ITV Companies £8m Per Quarter), to come to an agreement led to the chief executives on both sides exchanging insults in the national press (see Prebble Blames Sky For DTT’s Difficulties). The main sticking point seems to have been the price that ITV had to pay Sky to secure carriage, but today’s deal means that ITV keeps its promise to resolve the situation before Christmas.

BSkyB: 020 7705 3000 www.sky.com ITV Digital: ITV Digital: 0808 100 0101 www.itv-digital.co.uk

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