The Good, the Bad, and the Monkey: The Story of ITV Digital

How could such a popular mascot doom an entire company? Find out here!
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[@davidbarton6642]

PG Tips stopped using Al in the adverts in early 2010s but monkey carried on until 2016 or so but they don't use monkey anymore, i think they changed advertising agencies. A monkey graphic sometimes appears in social media but sadly no more videos.

[@annatkinson70]

They still use the monkey. Just not as much,he was in the most recent advert

[@Nick_80599]

Unilever sold off PG Tips and it's other tea businesses so yes I would imagine the brands now have a slashed advertising budget

[@mergieismoronic]

I am British and this is an incredibly accurate project on the history of their digital services. Well done!

[@wildsurfer12]

The reason Monkey wasn’t used after ITV Digital collapsed was because there was a legal battle between the ITV and the advertising agency over who had the rights to use him. This debate was settled when the rights were given to Comic Relief in 2005.

[@VectorTracker]

Now PG Tips have got rid of monkey for 'progress' lol

[@anthonyperkins7556]

I had ITV Digital and although I was excited at first, it quickly depressed me.

[@debbiemckeown7626]

Itv digital was based in the same headquarters as Sky's previous rivals, British Satellite Broadcasting and sky used some of the same tactics against them a decade later and ITV digital didn't think to preempt that and offer the same deals before sky did. The deal with the football league was crazy, their bid was far too high for lower league games, Premiership highlights and league Cup games and when they backed out the deal years early it left a lot of clubs in financial hardship and some did go into administration in the years following the collapse of the service. I have it's successor free view and I needed a digital ariel for it and it still sometimes has a bad picture if the weather isn't great but it was a one off payment for the box.

[@boglander2004]

The monkey advertisements stopped being made in 2017 RIP monkey and al 😔

[@MitsubishiGTO]

The newest PG Tips advert has Monkey in it as a plush toy at a girl’s tea party.

[@charlescharlie_charles]

The contract ITV Digital had with the Football League was one of several ill-fated sports broadcasting deals signed in the late nineties and early noughties when the broadcasting rights were extremely overvalued. In 2001 ITV also massively overpaid to outbid the BBC for the rights to broadcast highlights of what was then the Premiership, and it was an unmitigated disaster; when the rights went out to tender again in 2004, the BBC won them back bidding about half of what ITV had three years earlier. Channel 4 also made substantial losses broadcasting cricket after outbidding the BBC in 1998, resulting in cricket disappearing completely behind a paywall in 2005 because no free-to-air broadcaster was willing to take the risk.

[@marcostandy]

you missed the 3rd reason for its failure. the encryption system they used was already cracked before they even started broadcasting so only around 1 in 5 viewers of ITV digital were paying them any money.

[@mediamementosofficial]

It just goes to show that when you tangle with Rupert Murdock, you can’t win.

[@MrBlobbysLover]

PG Tips had a promotion a few years back and gave away stuffed Monkeys, I’m pretty sure I still have one knocking around somewhere! That was the second golden age of advertising, I miss it so much 😅

[@skylarpowell2225]

can i buy your monkey?

[@Nick_80599]

Analogue Cable TV was better than ITV Digital because because they bundled Cable TV and phone service together and they used to throw in a 2nd phone line so you could use dial up internet and still use the phone. Every aspect of NTL and Telewest Cable TV now Virgin Media was good even if the customer service was poor.

[@tashpetersen1939]

ITV should've had kept the monkey as the mascot of ITV.

[@johnking5174]

We were always Sky customers. We had family who had On Digital an we saw what a mess it was.

[@RE-ol5ws]

Apologies for what I said earlier. Please don't be mad at me.

[@mediamementosofficial]

No worries

[@Sephus912]

What was said?

[@supersubpls64]

i think that sky won because they made boxes longer then itv because itv is a brodcasting tv thing sky was allways knowing for makeing the tv boxes for satlight tv and componnys knowed what sky was so they stayed with them then itv they ar new to tv boxes and saw how bad it was so they did not risk it and decided to use sky

[@castle6742]

dont forget NTL and telewest aswell

[@rtc9063]

I had On Digital and was supposed to get a full service from the Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham) transmitter. Living so close to the Land Rover factory in Solihull, I saw more channels with a red dot not being able to receive anything - The only reason I had it was because of ITV 2 as ITV would not broadcast on Sky (Digital) back then.

[@hassansyed5661]

The monkey was killed by the pirates of NDS😢

[@eatatjoes6751]

So like the Geico cavemen? Though the monkey's adorable.

[@cromulence]

What isn’t mentioned here was the fact that Sky were involved in a piracy group and actually assisted pirates in blowing open the ONdigital encryption. Following the collapse of ITV digital, the underlying technology later evolved into Freeview around 2002, which is the current terrestrial standard still in use today (albeit with some technical changes to allow for HD channels). The original set top boxes could be used for Freeview but eventually stopped working when some fundamental changes were made to the transmission standards.

[@mediamementosofficial]

Whoa! Tell me more!

[@cromulence]

@@mediamementosofficial it's quite a story - look up BBC Panorama: Murdoch's TV Pirates - excellent show from the BBC investigating the claims.

[@Nick_80599]

They used to do it to NTL Telewest digital cable boxes as well (Now Virgin Media)

[@charlescharlie_charles]

@@mediamementosofficial Around the same time as the News Corp (who owned Sky at the time) phone hacking scandal, a BBC investigation found evidence that a News Corp subsidiary had been producing pirated smartcards. The police got involved, but like so many investigations into impropriety/illegality involving Murdoch, it soon went away.