Rebranding
In desperation at the churn rate, Carlton and Granada turned to their most valuable asset - the ITV brand - and on 11 July 2001 rebranded ONdigital as ITV Digital. They also (in a very expensive deal) purchased the TV rights to the Football League and launched the ITV Sport Channel. A massive re-branding campaign was launched to support the new naming, with customers even being sent ITV Digital stickers to place over the existing ONdigital logos on their remote controls and set top boxes. The software running on the receivers was never changed though, and always displayed 'ON' on nearly every screen. A plan to change the onscreen software was planned along with a change to a stronger encryption system in Autumn 2002 however this of course never arose due to liquidation. The rebrand was not without controversy as SMG plc (owner of Scottish Television and Grampian Television), UTV and Channel Television all pointed out that the ITV brand did not belong solely to Carlton and Granada. SMG and UTV initially refused to carry the advertising campaign for ITV Digital and did not allow the ITV Sports Channel space on their multiplex, meaning that it was not available at launch in most of Scotland and Northern Ireland. The case was resolved in Scotland, and the Channel Islands and later still in Northern Ireland, allowing the ITV Sport Channel to launch in the non-Carlton and Granada regions (although it was never made available in the Channel Islands, as the islands do not have DTT or Cable and it never appeared on Sky Digital).
Read more about this topic: ITV Digital