Chris

One problem with this that springs to mind is the necessarily restricted market for such a service. Sky potentially has access to every household in the UK, and something like 7 million existing subscribers to target advertising at. I suspect neither NTL nor Telewest have access to a large enough subscriber base to make such a service viable. The fewer 'NTL+' boxes they are likely to sell, the higher the unit price for each box would need to be, to cover development and other costs.

I think if you want such a service, best option is simply to endure the hassle and switch to someone who already provides it.