BSkyB chief executive Tony Ball told the committee yesterday that he thought ITV Digital's business model was flawed, adding that ITV executives "couldn't run a bath".
He added that ITV Digital's financial position was a result of management failure.
Ball said: "It tried to take on cable and satellite at what they are good at -- deploying losts of bandwidth and channels. And it took on Sky on sports, going after the same customers, instead of finding a new market -- a new middle England market."
However, Ball's comments were met with equal bitterness from ITV, which spoke of how it has lodged another competition complaint against Sky.
The complaint centres on the £17m a year Sky is charging ITV for carriage of its terrestrial service ITV1, which ITV believes is excessive.
Ball also lashed out at the BBC's expansion plans, saying that it was threatening to destroy the commercial sector.
He said: "The BBC is just genetically programmed to get bigger and bigger. This is going to destroy the commercial world." He added that current media ownership rules preventing Sky from owning a terrestrial broadcaster should be relaxed. He said that Sky was disadvantaged by not having a terrestrial outlet for cross-promotion and in bidding for programme rights.
Meanwhile, ITV chief executive Stuart Prebble accused culture secretary Tessa Jowell of dragging her heels on the issue of switching off the analogue signal.
Prebble compared the "vision" shown by former culture secretary Chris Smith, when he outlined the switch-off strategy in September 1999, with the slow progress being made under his successor.
Prebble called for 2006 to be set as the official analogue switch-off date to "provide industry and consumers with certainty about the government's intentions and drive investment in the digital project".
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