LONDON (Brand Republic) - The ITC is to launch a public consultation that could see media ownership rules, which prevent Carlton and Granada from promoting their digital pay-TV operation ONdigital on ITV, being abolished.
The move comes as the ITV partners reveal their plans to rebrand and strengthen ONdigital, which is to be relaunched as ITV Digital.
As expected, the rebranded service will be led by ONdigital chief executive Stuart Prebble, who has been appointed CEO of the ITV network.
Prebble will be expected to make savings of £20m a year at the network, as well as overhauling digital channel ITV2 and launching the new ITV-branded sports channel in August.
ITV Digital will become part of an ITV-branded package that will include ITV, ITV2, a new sports channel and a revamped website ITV.com, which will launch later this year.
The shake-up comes with the announcement that ONdigital has added 75,000 new subscribers in the first quarter of 2001, bringing its total to 1.087m, ahead of analyst expectations of around 1.05m.
It also cut its subscriber projections from 2m by 2003 to 1.7m in 2003-4.