ITV Digital (formerly ONdigital) was the UK carrier of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and was a joint venture between UK operators Carlton and Granada. ITV Digital was placed in to Administration in April 2002, and screens began to go blank on 1st May 2002.
The BBC and Sky have joined forces to form a new DTT company, which launched on 30th October 2002 under the name Freeview. Click here for more details on UK digital TV.
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itvDigital no longer exists, and so this page
is no longer updated. You'll find If you're a Freeview user, you may want to have a listen to the latest FrequencyCast Podcast, which covers Freeview news and new developments in UK digital TV. Go to www.frequencycast.co.uk |
Old information on ITV Digital. For more up-to-date details of digital TV in the UK, click here
ITV Digital Monkey?
Even after the demise of ITV Digital, their major success story 'Monkey' lived
on... at least for a while. Until 2005, it was possible to buy Monkey from
online from The Gadget
Shop , but it looks like their doors have finally closed to Monkey stock.
Now, if you want to own one of these collectibles, you'd better get searching
for this endangered species... at good old Ebay
Jan
2003 - 1 million
ITV Digital boxes won't be reclaimed!
Following
December's controversial announcement from the liquidators that ex-subscribers
would have to pay £40 for their old boxes, ITV Digital's former parent companies
Granada and Carlton have agreed to have agreed pay itvDigital's
Administrators, Grant Thornton, the
cost of the 990,000 outstanding boxes plus any subscriptions still owed. Anyone
who paid to keep their box, will be getting a refund. This decision has most likely
been made so that ITV will gain extra viewers for ITV2 and ITV News, now running
free-to-air on Freeview.
If you have, or had, a subsidised onDigital/ITV Digital box, then the administrators want it back. They have agreed to collect boxes for free, or let you keep the box for £39.99. This has sparked a huge debate on various newsgroups, about who owns the boxes, what happens if you refuse to pay (debt collectors...), and whether box holders can change a "storage fee" for looking after the boxes since May 2002. The debate is ongoing, but it would appear that When you signed up to onDigital/ITV digital, you agreed to two things... a "Provision of programming" agreement (which has been broken as the service is no longer being offered), and a "Box loan agreement", which has not been broken. Unless you purchased an unsubsidised box, or for some other reason, didn't sign the contract, you don't own the box... itvDigital's Administrators, Grant Thornton, do... and they want them back!
- Media Guardian - "Return set-top boxes or pay £39.99, ITV customers told"
- The Register - "Hand back ITV Digital set tops. Or else!"
- Daily Telegraph - "Debt-collector threat to recover TV boxes"
- BBC News - "Q and A: Demand for return of ITV Digital boxes"
- BBC Radio 5 Shearson extract - "The Liquidator" Malcolm Shierson (4 very amusing minutes)
More
set-top boxes announced. The Pace DTVA-T, 
12
May 2002 - Although ITV Digital is no more, existing ITVDigital/OnDigital
boxes can still pick up the free-to-air channels, including BBC 3, CBBC,
cBeebies, BBC4, ITV2, ITN, the shopping channel (please...)
plus the usual 5 terrestrial channels. Up to 15 channels are available without
subscription via your TV aerial (provided you're in a coverage area). If you
want to expand your viewing choice without getting cable or a dish on the
wall, the free-to-air channels may be enough. For under £100, the 