Highlights
Harnessing one of the most powerful brands in the UK, the new ITV will include ITV, ITV2, a new ITV Sport Channel to launch in August, Ondigital, which will be renamed ITV Digital and ITV.com, which launches later this year.
Aligning Carlton and Granada’s ITV assets will allow more effective management and is expected to yield total cost efficiencies for the two companies together of GBP20m per annum in the second full year.
Stuart Prebble will be appointed Chief Executive of ITV with overall responsibility for ITV free-to-air and pay channels and ITV.com.
Rob Fyfe will be appointed Managing Director of ITV Digital.
David Liddiment will continue to be ITV Director of Programmes and, as ITV Director of Channels, will assume wider editorial responsibility for ITV digital channels.
Charles Allen, Chairman of Granada plc, said:
‘This is the most fundamental change in British broadcasting since the launch
of multi-channel television. Granada and Carlton have forged a new partnership in ITV, the UK’s most popular television channel, and are now bringing together the tremendous brand strength of ITV with the UK’s digital
terrestrial broadcasting platform.’
Michael Green, Chairman of Carlton Communications Plc, said:
‘ITV will now leapfrog the BBC and Sky with this new partnership. A combined
free-to-air and pay television audience of 50 million viewers a week offered
entertainment, the Internet and e-commerce is a world first.’
ITV Digital
ONdigital will be re-branded ITV Digital and become ITV’s pay television
platform, leveraging the strength of the ITV brand. Having achieved 1 million subscribers faster than any comparable platform, ONdigital announced that it added a net 75,000 subscribers in the quarter to 31st March 2001, giving it a total subscriber base of 1.087 million. Its current churn rate of 22 per cent per annum is lower than all other pay television operators at an equivalent point from launch.
ITV Digital’s strategy is to improve consumer loyalty, increase revenue per
subscriber and reduce acquisition costs. This strategy will be delivered
through:
Rapidly improving geographic coverage, which will reach 70 per cent of the UK within the next three months. Coverage will be further enhanced by the announcement this week that the government will facilitate improvements to the quality of digital reception by doubling the power of the signal strength, initially at 8 of the key transmitters serving many of the major urban areas; and
Enhancing content with additional services, including a compelling sports offering as the launch of the ITV Sport Channel adds to the channel line-up and new pay per view and interactive services are introduced.
This will enable ITV Digital to build a loyal and established customer base as
the business continues to grow towards planned break-even in 2003/4 with 1.7 million subscribers.
ITV.com will create a unified online home for all ITV entertainment and
interactivity. It will integrate itv.co.uk, as well as Granada and Carlton’s
ITV online properties, such as Coronationstreet.co.uk, Emmerdale.co.uk and
Crossroadshotel.co.uk. Taken together, these existing Carlton and Granada
services already generate over 20 million page impressions per month and will create one of the UK’s top ten entertainment sites.
