Football Bubble: The Crash of ITV Digital

Football Bubble: The crash of ITV Digital

What can be learnt from the crash ITV Digital and its effect on football clubs?

Primarily, that bidding for sports rights can be particularly risky if overvalued. Perhaps more ominously, ITV Digital’s crash demonstrated the interdependence between the sport and media industries. If one falls, the other will face serious repercussions.

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#premierleague #itv #skysports

[Sizdothyx]

The weird thing is ... I actually preferred ITV's approach to football. They always had these nice segments leading up to the game with the odd statistic/trivia I enjoyed. Now on beIN, it's all talking heads all the time. Just let me process the information for myself.

[cdiogo]

I’ll never forget being able to watch legends of the game playing in the champions league because of itv.

[Mr_Kunle]

Who remembers the u2 - Beautiful day tv opening sequence itv used that was awesome

[ZdzichuWiertara]

Wait, the EFL sued their lawyers for 150M and got 4 quid?

[TessaTestarossa]

"Can we give you a bit less money?"
"Nah, we'd prefer if you went bankrupt and didn't pay us anything. ... Wait a minute, what the hell??"

[MrBlazemaster]

"The EFL's was negligient"

When have they ever been competent?the effects of the ITV collapse are still felt to this day imo

[MalaysiaPhilip]

The other reason ITV Digital failed was pretty much everyone I knew went out and got the free digi-box from Argos etc and then acquired a pirate card which gave you access to all the channels without subscribing.

[Robi]

4 £ out of 150 million :) Judge had sense of humor ;)

[fireboltninja]

When the story didn’t originally appear on the athletic

*wait. Thats impossible*

[christopherhulse]

I paid up front for a year's viewing for the football on ITV digital (£100) and lost every penny when it went bust. Another issue not mentioned here is the poor digital signal that many people had to suffer as the early days of terrestrial digital TV in the UK were handicapped by a low transmitted signal.

[johnmora]

Maybe you guys can do a video on the recent analysis/report on the financial state of the Championship, with clubs posting record losses in their attempts to make it to the Premier League.

[bobj]

Leaked codes meant many people could decript and watch for free, suggestions of corporate espionage was suggested. This won sky supreme monopoly.

[djfmitv]

One correction: On Digital (Granada and Carlton TV) originally wanted Sky on board, to make a consortium of Carlton, Granada & Sky, but the competition watchdog blocked the deal (whether rightly or wrongly) as they considered Sky to be 'too powerful'. This led to On Digital and Sky becoming rivals, where On Digital was out-matched from the start.

[Gnawing]

Rejected a reduced contract with itv, but settled for a far less £95million with Sky.
That's the EFL for you

[badboybanton]

Would have been cheaper for ITV Digital to send their subscribers to the actual games they showed

[carlb]

I remember being a kid and talking my parents into getting ONdigital we had analogue sky with 19 channels which was ok but was fuzzy as hell. They went upto currys on the retail park and I remember plainly the bloke who served saying don't get On digital its rubbish but get sky instead. So they did. We had to wait 2 months for the installation to take place. Which was like waiting for hell to freeze over.

Looking back now, it's as if every outlet in the land was against ONdigital/ITv and in the pockets of BSkyB. It's a shame really.

[roban]

You’ve left out the rise of dodgy boxes, that was the biggest issue Itv Digital came up against.

[elonburgers]

Great video, but at 4:08 you implied ITV digital used a dish when it actually just used an existing standard analogue TV antenna and a box (this was one of the marketed features over Sky). ITV digital was one of the first digital terrestrial TV networks and when it collapsed the remnants were acquired and remade into the Freeview service by the BBC (which is now the standard for receiving terrestrial TV in the UK). For a long time after ITV Digital went bust the boxes could still be used to watch Freeview service.

[danieldorward]

I wrote my dissertation last year on how television broadcasting revenue has created a competitive imbalance in the Premier League and this video would have been sooo helpful! Oh, well. Great video nonetheless!

[alexroberts]

I was just thinking about this, and then I though it'd be great if Tifo had done a video to explain it better. And you have, so thank you for being several months ahead of my brain. Keep up the good work :)