[Stuart]

I'd hate to see ITV charge (they have, in the last few months, started producing some good dramas again).

However, ITV's problem is two fold.

1) They are losing viewers to other channels. Not as much now as they were, buy they still are, which is something the advertisers will factor in when negotiating prices for advertising.
2) TV advertising in this country is still seen as something of a luxury for companies, and is often the first thing to be cut in a recssion. Thus, even with higher viewing figures and good television, they will still try and drop the advertising rates.

There are two reasons why ITV would go for subscriptions.

One massive reason that they won't is simple. If they charged, they would probably have to give up the licence for Channel 3. They'd also lose access to Freeview, which could well account for most of their viewers . In terms of actual sets installed, Freeview actually dwarfs both Sky and Virgin. Having said that, I don't know how many people actually watch ITV on freeview, but I suspect it's more than either Sky or Virgin.

Another couple of things that may stop it.

They've got a £2.6 billion shortfall at today's advertising rates. They'd need to charge a *lot* of people £3 a week to get that back, and that's without factoring in to account the fact that a *lot* of people will just ditch ITV rather than pay for it, and that the advertisers will demand reduced rates because of that (assuming they don't just dump ITV as well).

The Government may intervene as they do see TV as an important source of education, not to mention a source of advertising come election time. OK, so ITV don't currently seem to provide any educational content, but it has provided educational content in the past, and any government that let a potential source of information to a vast number of people just simply go (as it would for those who either won't or can't get access to any pay TV systems) would look very bad.