ONdigital launch weekend success
17th November 1998
ONdigital, the newly launched digital terrestrial pay television service reports a fantastic first forty-eight hours. Demand in the high streets for the ONdigital set-top boxes was phenomenal. Telephone lines to the company's call centre have been buzzing all weekend with over 75,000 calls since the first boxes were sold on Saturday.
Said Thorn UK's marketing and merchandise director Mike Ryan:
"We knew in advance that there would be a good response to terrestrial digital television as 47 per cent of our Digital Advantage Club members expressed an interest in this format prior to the launch.
However, the eagerness of the customers to sign up to ONdigital exceeded all our expectations and the Radio Rentals midnight launch was a great success. We sold 20 set-top boxes in the first half hour of the opening and took hundreds of orders over the rest of the weekend."
Reports from the first people to test the ONdigital plug and play promise are full of praise. Industry guru and journalist Bob Tomalski says:
"I confess I had my doubts but now I am converted. It does what ONdigital claims; it is plug and play, it is simple and it works first time on any TV set. Because it is television through your aerial, it will be the normal way of receiving television in the future."
ONdigital brings viewers 30 of the best television channels from the BBC, Carlton, Granada and Sky. It is the only service that:
- allows customers to choose their own Primary channels from £7.99 a month
- delivers all the terrestrial channels in digital - BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 (ONdigital is the only digital platform for ITV and ITV2)
- carries British Eurosport and Cartoon Network 24 hours a day in digital.
ONdigital includes the most popular channels on multichannel TV: Sky One, The Cartoon Network, UK Gold and Eurosport, together with dedicated Sky sport and movie channels.