ITV to charge

[LondonRoad]

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/...-its-viewers-3

I don't see that this is imminent but is it possible for ITV to just stop being free to air or would they have to give notice.

Would Sky and Virgin be happy to offer an ITV package or would it have to be negotiated?

Where would that leave Freeview?

[EBD3000]

Bad bad idea, but if they did do this then I assume it'd have to be like Setanta. You'd pay extra rather than Sky/Virgin just putting the prices up. I wouldn't pay.

Anyway they stated how they think it would affect freeview and analogue -

"The four ITV channels would then disappear overnight from Freeview. ITV1 would cease to be “Channel 3� and viewers wanting to watch ITV would be forced to take up a subscription with either Sky or Virgin. "

[joglynne]

I don't know what the percentages are predicted to be regarding Sky/VM against Freeview once the digital switch over is complete but surely the advertisers would have something to say about the reduction in viewing figures if the channels were not on the free to view platform?

[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.

[MovedGoalPosts]

I thought the ITV licence or franchise meant it had to be a free to air channel

Certainly they could move the ITV2/3/4 to a subscription channel, but would the revenue from that outweight the advertising loss by reduced viewers. That possibly depends on current viewers.

However the advertising income days are probably numbered. With increasing channel choice viewers are spread more thinly. With increased use of PVRs viewers see less ads from the programmes they record (I watch less and less live now), and finally with streaming catch up type players the normal advert streams are bypassed.

I suspect our current TV model is going to change rapidly in the next few years, especially as the analogue to digital swithcover completes.