Brand Failures

216 Brand failures
for digital television as of interest only to ‘sad people who live in lofts.’
However, ITV Digital later mimicked BSkyB’s football-centric strategy, by
paying £315 million for the rights to televise matches from the Nationwide
Football League. They also ended up buying movies from the satellite firm.
‘The inherent contradictions from the top down confused viewers,’ reckoned
The Observer newspaper.
The Observer also pointed the finger at Charles Allen and Michael Green,
the chairmen of the platform’s two shareholders, Granada and Carlton, and
the other management figures:
Many in the City expect that, even if Allen and Green manage to hang
on to their positions, allowing them to make a more leisurely exit later
in the year, some of their lieutenants will soon have to fall on their
swords. Question marks hang over the head of Granada chief executive
Steve Morrison, who, at the height of negotiations with the Football
League, opted to take a holiday in New Zealand. And it is hard to see
how Stuart Prebble, a former journalist who, despite having no experience
in the pay TV arena, rose to become chief executive of ITV and
ITV Digital, can stay in the ITV fold.
But alongside managerial failings, some things were beyond the company’s
control. For instance, despite assurances from the Independent Television
Commission (ITC) that the power of ITV Digital’s broadcasting signal
would be increased, nothing happened. Coverage was reduced to include
only about half of the UK. Also, the ITC’s decision to force Sky out of the
original consortium – over ‘fears of a Murdoch dominated media’ according
to The Observer – meant that none of the companies behind the platform had
solid expertise within the pay-TV arena.
‘The ITC kept Sky out. If Sky had been allowed to stay in, ITV Digital
would have got to three million subscribers by now,’ said Dermont Nolan of
media consultancy TBS in April 2002. That some month ITV Digital met
its demise and called in the administrators from Deloitte and Touche.
Although there were over 100 expressions of interest in the platform’s assets
most of the interest was to do with the brand’s mascot, the ITV Digital
monkey which became something of a celebrity in a series of adverts featuring
comedian Johnny Vegas. Unfortunately, the monkey’s popularity didn’t rub
off on the platform it was promoting.