BBC and ITV explore launch of free satellite service
By Guy Dennis
Sunday Telegraph [UK]
September 4, 2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/09/04/cnsatl04.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2005/09/04/ixcity.html
ITV is understood to have held advanced talks with the BBC about forming a
partnership to launch a free satellite television service.
Although discussions have not been concluded, plans for a new service could
be announced within two months.
A BBC-led satellite service has been mooted for some time, but the
corporation believes it would need to have attractive channels to appeal to
the public. One way of achieving this would be to sign a joint venture with
ITV.
The service would be free once viewers had bought a satellite dish and a
set-top box, and it would offer more channels than both traditional
five-channel analogue television and Freeview, the hugely popular digital
terrestrial service launched by the BBC and other broadcasters.
A joint venture between the BBC and ITV could pose a threat to British Sky
Broadcasting's dominance of satellite services.
At the moment ITV channels are broadcast on Sky, but ITV pays about £17m a
year to have its channels encrypted. In recent months, ITV has been
negotiating a new deal with Sky and has been seeking to cut the cost.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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