Grabiner Attempts To Justify Digital Set-Top Box Give-Away

Speaking at MediaTel’s Media Question Time last night the chief executive of ONdigital, Stephen Grabiner’s explanation of the box give-away – announced only that morning (see Newsline)- was attacked by fellow panelist Ray Snoddy (Times media editor).

Grabiner said that research showed boxes at £199 were the “single biggest hurdle” to people thinking of investing in digital television. This spiked any promotions and the customer response was “we know your boxes will be free, it happens to all technology in the end”.

Snoddy took particular issue with this remark: “What we’ve just heard is quite extraordinary”.

“Digital television”, he said, “is such an emphatic revolution that nobody will pay £199 to get it?”

“This notion of Mr Grabiner’s… that it is perfectly reasonable that all technology becomes free…What other technology is free?” The real problem, said Snoddy, as demonstrated by BSkyB and ONdigital in the last month is that the “depth of desire for this technology is not very deep at all”.

“Both have done their market research and discovered that people are not willing to pay for this technology. They are using the old Gillette method – let’s give them the razor for free and we’ve got the suckers for life.”

Undaunted, Grabiner bet the panel that multi-homes share would double to 60% in the next five years. In the short-term he said “hundreds of thousands of people will subscribe”.

Christine Walker, Managing Partner of Walker Media, was rather unmoved by such predictions, and felt a significant point would be the entry of cable into the digital market in July.