The plan for a consortium of free to air broadcasters to bid for the ITV Digital licences stalled because of a row between the BBC and the ITV companies over including a pay TV element.

The BBC wanted spectrum set aside for pay TV channels such as UK Gold, which is part of the corporation's UKTV joint venture with Telewest programming subsidiary Flextech.

But the two biggest ITV companies, Carlton and Granada, did not want to sign up for a consortium that would provide extra competition from the UKTV channels, according to a report in Saturday's Times.

Carlton and Granada, which lost £800m on ITV Digital before it collapsed last month, are also not keen to get involved in pay TV again.

The five members of the fledgling consortium - the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and SDN - were forced to put in separate expressions of interest to the independent television commission last Thursday, because these differences could not be sorted out.

The consortium partners now have two weeks to sort out their differences and submit a far more detailed application for the three ITV Digital licences available.

g8 now there fighting about what to show i wish they would move there ass and get somthing on

will we really get anything decent back onto our tvs via stb? or are we just being wishful?
regards
spik
y