Six minutes of reasons to subscribe to ITV Digital, but not a single mention that the service was destined to go belly-up within months. In fairness, they seemed to be offering truly à la carte packages unlike their rivals, and they had a decent amount of football on offer, but dirty tricks by Sky (first giving away their own set top boxes for free, refusing to carry the ITV Sport channel, and then cracking ITV's encryption and leaking their findings to known pirates, if the rumours are to be believed) coupled with financial incompetence on their own part meant the writing was on the wall.
I actually think this recording may come from March 2002, the very month they finally entered administration, and it's morbidly fascinating to see exactly what they were pushing in their vain attempts to woo potential customers. Film fan? No problem - Carlton Cinema has got you covered. And just in case you're not paying enough, there's always ITV Select, our pay-per-view offering. And who wants a computer? Obviously, surfing the web and sending e-mails on your living room TV via ITV Active is the future.
Not even Johnny Vegas and Monkey could save them.
Many thanks to @David315842 for sending me this tape.
(If you're a copyright holder and have any objections, please feel free to contact me. Alternatively, I haven't monetised the video, so you're welcome to do so, and that way everybody wins.)
23 апр 2024
