ITV HD, itself a niche channel only accessible on freesat via the red button, was shunned by STV (Scotland's principal commercial TV station) because it may have watered down the channel's identity.
"The sovereignty of our brand is absolutely paramount to us, so what we don't want is to start promoting ITV in Scotland," Woodward told the Broadcasting Press Guild. "We've got a lot of focus in making sure that everything we do be it online, idents, continuity or closing credits has to be clean and has to promote STV and this is also at the heart of HD."
This decision meant that ITV's recent Euro 2008 action was unavailable to anyone using freesat in Scotland foolish enough to tell the truth about their postcode. Viewers who put in an English postcode to circumvent the system were allowed access to enemy pictures.
I understand the concept of protecting a brand, but given that most people who live in a region will only watch their particular region's flavour of programming (and some can only watch that) I don't see what the big deal is.
Indeed, viewing STV's web site reveals channel listings that look like this:
Perhaps Woodward thinks that, at 11.15am and 1.30pm, thousands of Scots are going to abandon STV because of the ITV news? Get real!
Ironically, Woodward would like to launch a new channel in collaboration with, arguably, one of commercial terrestrial TV's biggest rivals -- the BBC.
It seems that Scotland is destined to miss out on some of the free high definition offerings that the rest of the UK can enjoy, because of commercial interests. Fortunately, there's not much on ITV HD yet, and even when there is, it goes wrong.
(Via Broadband TV News)
