DTT - What a mess!
051ris
As an ex-ondigital customer, I personally was waiting to see who got
the new licenses and what services were to offer before I subscribed
to $ky or Cable. Now that this FTA service has been announced, I am
appauled and will be getting 'real' digital tv soon.
NTL have been on the phone and offered quite a good deal for
ex-ondigital/ITVdigital customers. My only reservation is the bundled
telephone line (as I am quite happy with BT).
So....thanks ITV/Carlton....thanks BBC....thanks UK
government......you have given me no option but to subscribe to an
alternative service.
Surely this is the death of FTA already!
Annoyed
o51ris
Zonky
@posting.google.com:
> NTL have been on the phone and offered quite a good deal for
> ex-ondigital/ITVdigital customers.
I can't really understand why any person wanting Digital TV who lived in a
a cable area would have gone with ON/ITVDigital over Cable.
--
Please remove my_pants when replying by email.
Paul Evans
"Zonky" <zonky@my_pants.teletubbies.net> wrote in message
news:uilshlf...@corp.supernews.com...
Well I did because at the time:
1) I was at university away from home, and wanted to watch anything other
than Coronation Street.
2) The channels I actually watched - UK Play (as it was), Sky One, Cartoon
Network, News 24 (free, I know but it wasn't free on cable at the time),
MTV, On Sport, and a couple of others cost me £9.99 a month. Because of the
way NTL arranged their packages, and spread the most popular channels over
several of them, it would have cost me £34.99 a month. Not even an option!
Even now I mainly watch these channels, despite the 135 offered to me on
NTL.
3) The box was mine and I could take it anywhere (I often did).
Paul.
Aztech
news:eBCW8.3096$Ae.1...@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net...
<snip>
> 2) The channels I actually watched - UK Play (as it was), Sky One, Cartoon
> Network, News 24 (free, I know but it wasn't free on cable at the time),
> MTV, On Sport, and a couple of others cost me £9.99 a month. Because of the
> way NTL arranged their packages, and spread the most popular channels over
> several of them, it would have cost me £34.99 a month. Not even an option!
> Even now I mainly watch these channels, despite the 135 offered to me on
> NTL.
Yeah... problem is they went bankrupt because of it ;)
Az.
Aztech
news:6b5e7448.02070...@posting.google.com...
Well clearly pay-DTT is a failed model and doesn't work, did you expect somebody
to step in and make the same mistakes twice? Even IF a new pay company won the
licences you'd have to re-subscribe anyway, but fortunately there's two pay
alternatives that have adequate amounts of bandwidth delivered in a robust
manner.
I wasn't aware that Government made ITV-D sign ludicrous contracts with the
Football League, but if you have to blame someone....
Az.
Michael
news:X2DW8.25305$af4.18...@news-text.cableinet.net...
> Well clearly pay-DTT is a failed model and doesn't work, did you expect
somebody
> to step in and make the same mistakes twice
I seem to recall someone submitted a multiplex tender for running a Pay TV
service, so yes.
> I wasn't aware that Government made ITV-D sign ludicrous contracts with
the
> Football League, but if you have to blame someone....
At the end of the day it was the (not so independent) ITC who killed Pay TV
on DTT off because the ministers at the DCMS hit the panic button.
Michael.
Paul Evans
Well, that and buying up over-inflated football rights, doing nothing to
crack down on piracy, closing down channels, choosing crap channels like
Wellbeing, hiking up prices because Sky Sports cost them more even though I
never subscribed to it, etc, etc....
Paul.
Aztech
news:agf2t6$erf$1...@helle.btinternet.com...
> "Aztech" <a...@tech.com> wrote in message
> news:X2DW8.25305$af4.18...@news-text.cableinet.net...
> > Well clearly pay-DTT is a failed model and doesn't work, did you expect
> somebody
> > to step in and make the same mistakes twice
>
> I seem to recall someone submitted a multiplex tender for running a Pay TV
> service, so yes.
Surprisingly Carlton/Granada submitted a pay-lite bid, without the support of
CrownCastle which is understandable when said companies have just voided a 12
year TX contract worth over $250m, I guess they weren't too keen to sit around
the table with them and sign yet another contract that may, or may not be ripped
up, so the bid was not viable because they only had NTL's more limited TX
network. The Apax Partners bid was simply opportunistic and not viable, they
were all pretty crappy bids but the BBC aren't likely to go bankrupt anytime
soon.
> > I wasn't aware that Government made ITV-D sign ludicrous contracts with
> the
> > Football League, but if you have to blame someone....
>
> At the end of the day it was the (not so independent) ITC who killed Pay TV
> on DTT off because the ministers at the DCMS hit the panic button.
Let's see, ITV-D called it a day, they called in the Administrators who went to
the high court, they didn't pay the programme suppliers so they cut off the
content, screens went blank thus voiding the licence for the multiplexes, then
ITC then retendered them, at no stage did DCMS pull the plug, ITV-D hung itself
and left everyone else to clear up the mess, they even shafted their
ex-employees.
It's amazing how you can offload complete corporate idiocy onto Government.
Az.
Aztech
Add it to the list, "101 Ways not to run a Company".
Az.
_matt_cook_
> Well clearly pay-DTT is a failed model and doesn't work, did you expect
somebody
> to step in and make the same mistakes twice?
Analog terrestrial PayTV works well in NZ, ok in regional Australia, and I
think in Germany as well. But then nice robust analog transmissions don't
suffer as much from cars, fridges, etc.
There are some people who don't mind the limited number of channels, as long
as it costs a limited number of pounds/dollars/euros.
Aztech
news:agfus0$l8jk2$1...@ID-140340.news.dfncis.de...
>
> "Aztech" <a...@tech.com> wrote in message
> news:X2DW8.25305$af4.18...@news-text.cableinet.net...
>
> > Well clearly pay-DTT is a failed model and doesn't work, did you expect
> somebody
> > to step in and make the same mistakes twice?
>
> Analog terrestrial PayTV works well in NZ, ok in regional Australia, and I
> think in Germany as well. But then nice robust analog transmissions don't
> suffer as much from cars, fridges, etc.
But they're well established and like Canal+ had first moved advantage where
they were the only option at one time, the pay market is nicely sown up by Sky
who happen to have the nicest platform, significant chunks of content and first
mover advantage, whoever comes in has to deal with that situation and they're
bound to fail to even match one of those points.
> There are some people who don't mind the limited number of channels, as long
> as it costs a limited number of pounds/dollars/euros.
Enough to support a viable platform? Canal+'s pay terrestrial network in France
has pretty much stagnated now it's only inertia and sunk costs that keeps it
going, not exactly ideal conditions for expanding a new network.
Az.
Michael
> Surprisingly Carlton/Granada submitted a pay-lite bid
What on earth are you talking about?
From the ITC site:
Freeview Plus
D
David Chance, Ian West
Pay-lite proposition
Submitted not but Carlton, not by Granda, but by two guys who used to work
for Sky Digital!!!
> > At the end of the day it was the (not so independent) ITC who killed Pay
TV
> > on DTT off because the ministers at the DCMS hit the panic button.
>
> Let's see, ITV-D called it a day, they called in the Administrators who
went to
> the high court, they didn't pay the programme suppliers so they cut off
the
> content, screens went blank thus voiding the licence for the multiplexes,
then
> ITC then retendered them, at no stage did DCMS pull the plug, ITV-D hung
itself
> and left everyone else to clear up the mess, they even shafted their
> ex-employees.
Get a grip this is how it happened (in the easy format of a Steps video so
you can follow):
1. ITV-D sign stupid contract with football league.
2. ITV-D realise it is a stupid contract and try to sort it out.
3: Raise your hands to your head in a tragic fashion.
4. Football league go no, sod you, it was a stupid contract it's your fault.
5. ITV-D have to close cos Football league won't renegotiate.
6. Everyone who subscribed to ITV-D lose out
7. Football league lose out cos they get less cash than they would
renegotiating
8. ITC awarding licenses to the BBC under pressure from DCMS who don't want
another DTT failure cos then the government won't get the cash from the
spectrum sell-off in 2010.
9. BBC win but license payers pay to not only subsidise the £20m quid's
worth of adverts for DTT but for the 24 channels of rubbish they are going
to put out.
10. Sky win, no competition from DTT and 3 channels to advertise Sky Digital
on for free.
11. Everyone else loses, bye bye NTL and Telewest.
And there you go,
Michael.
Aztech
>
> "Aztech" <a...@tech.com> wrote in message
> news:NjEW8.25412$kx4.18...@news-text.cableinet.net...
> > Surprisingly Carlton/Granada submitted a pay-lite bid
>
> What on earth are you talking about?
>
> From the ITC site:
>
> Freeview Plus
> D
> David Chance, Ian West
> Pay-lite proposition
With Carlton/Granada running FTA muxes with control over channel line-up,
neither had support from CrownCastle despite the shell company obfuscation.
<snip>
> Get a grip this is how it happened (in the easy format of a Steps video so
> you can follow):
>
> 1. ITV-D sign stupid contract with football league.
> 2. ITV-D realise it is a stupid contract and try to sort it out.
> 3: Raise your hands to your head in a tragic fashion.
> 4. Football league go no, sod you, it was a stupid contract it's your fault.
> 5. ITV-D have to close cos Football league won't renegotiate.
> 6. Everyone who subscribed to ITV-D lose out
All nicely summed up in "ITV-D called it a day", we all know the gory
chronology.
> 7. Football league lose out cos they get less cash than they would
> renegotiating
> 8. ITC awarding licenses to the BBC under pressure from DCMS who don't want
> another DTT failure cos then the government won't get the cash from the
> spectrum sell-off in 2010.
That may be the case, but how does that amount to the DCMS pulling the plug on
ITV-D, they clearly pulled the plug on themselves by letting the screens go
blank thus nullifying the licence, and they also happened to take the whole pay
concept with it, I can't see how Government is as culpable as you make out, even
if there was ministerial pressure it's pretty obvious any pay operation would be
on shaky ground.
> 9. BBC win but license payers pay to not only subsidise the £20m quid's
> worth of adverts for DTT but for the 24 channels of rubbish they are going
> to put out.
Indeed... and they'll hope for millions of anonymous DTT boxes out there without
CA capability, not to mention any form of subscriber management thus ensuring
long-term justification for the licence once PAL has gone. The inclusion of
SkyNews also gets the people doing their competitive review of News24 of their
backs nicely in time for the consultations leading upto 2006, plus more
bandwidth and generally a job well done from their point of view.
> 10. Sky win, no competition from DTT and 3 channels to advertise Sky Digital
> on for free.
Indeed, and a default terrestrial presence in the long-term plus it increases
the influence of SkyNews. Also, if DTT was seen to have failed partly through
their influence it could have got the OFT excited, especially if the government
is never going to get their filthy hands on all that spectrum, or the backing of
certain newspapers.
> 11. Everyone else loses, bye bye NTL and Telewest.
Can't see how it could directly affect them... it can only help them if a pay
competitor is out the market, besides they're too busy getting screwed by
institutional bond holders.
Az.
Simon G
>
>Enough to support a viable platform? Canal+'s pay terrestrial network in France
>has pretty much stagnated now it's only inertia and sunk costs that keeps it
>going, not exactly ideal conditions for expanding a new network.
C+ is doing well in France. The group's problems are more connected
with the group's activity in Italy. The French C+ premium channel is
doing very well, with something like 5 million subscribers, paying 18
pounds a month for just one channel (although some of them also get
multiplexed versions of said channel).
Zonky
news:FBLW8.26173$aq6.19...@news-text.cableinet.net:
> But they're well established and like Canal+ had first moved advantage
> where they were the only option at one time
iirc, Kiwi Cable co in Paraparaumu preceded Sky TV's analogue Sub Service
in NZ.
</pedant>
Aztech
news:isiniukmfnhnjcjp3...@4ax.com...
It must be said most of their subscriber base has shifted over to DSat, it
appears their VHF transmissions are largely kept alive as a bargaining chip for
spectrum. The last time I looked Canal+ were one of the major components
contributing to Vivendi's woes, hence this feat:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1934000/1934388.stm
Az.
R. Mark Clayton
I thought it was just for the hardest XXX in Europe?