Rivals bid for ITV Digital customers

Nick Goodway12 April 2012

RIVAL digital television companies today tried to carve up the carcass of ITV Digital's 1.2m subscriber base between them, with some launching special offers and discounts.

Call centres for its major rival BSkyB were reportedly inundated. Existing subscribers phoning in with technical inquiries were at times asked to leave their numbers so that they could be called back later, 'due to the current changes in the digital market'.

Cable companies NTL and Telewest advertised special deals and reported high levels of interest. NTL used the slogan 'If ITV Digital is history, what's the future?' to advertise half-price installation for the rest of this month. It is also offering a free month's access to its high-speed broadband internet service.

Telewest, saying 'ITV Digital customers: enough of the monkey business', also offered half-price installation to ITV Digital customers who contact it by 8 May.

ITV Digital is in administration and is expected to go into liquidation after failing to renegotiate a £315m Football League contract. It stopped broadcasting pay-TV channels on Wednesday.

Investment bank Merrill Lynch said: 'We conservatively forecast that BSKyB will pick up only 200,000 ITV Digital customers.'

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