The news comes on the back of press reports earlier this week which suggested NTL might buy the service from Carlton and Granada.
A merger would have brought the two services together to create an operator serving both terrestrial and cable subscribers that was able to compete against Rupert Murdoch and Sky Digital. ITV Digital has 1.1m subscribers compared with Sky's 5m.
This story was, however, denied by all concerned, leaving the ITV partners to work out what to do with the costly ITV Digital service, which was recently rebranded from ONdigital. The two ITV companies are forecast to have invested £1.1bn by the time the service is slated to break even in 2003.
The NTL reports were fuelled by recent comments by Gerry Murphy, chief executive of Carlton, which owns the terrestrial digital service with Granada, that it was considering inviting a third investor to help with the costs.
The BBC is the latest in a line of companies to be linked with ITV Digital. Earlier reports had linked both BT and BSkyB as possible investors.
As a partner, the BBC would make a lot of sense for the ITV partners, according to Robert Preston, a director of Quest, the online valuation service for money managers. He makes the case that the three have a shared interest in ensuring that BSkyB and NTL/Telewest do not become a de facto broadcasting duopoly.
Writing on csquest.com, Preston said, "The BBC is mulling an investment in ITV Digital. But there is a big and difficult question for government about whether the BBC should be allowed to use licence-payers' money for this. An argument in favour is that the survival of ITV Digital could provide a more attractive future for public service television."
Preston argues that "the government will not be able to make good on its promise to switch off all analogue broadcasting in the next few years if ITV Digital goes bust -- because swathes of the UK will be inaccessible by cable and satellite for decades to come."