ITV have announced plans to charge ‘micropayments’ for people using their catch up service, starting in 2012. ITV Player was added to the PS3 TV catch up in 2010 along with Channel 4’s ‘4OD’.
The twitterverse has reacted as you would expect to the news, ‘Fantastically terrible decision’ is one comment, ‘Good luck with that one!’ is another.
It is rather odd that  ITV wish to start charging for ITV Player (complete with adverts) and yet Channel 4 – who also rely on advertising revenue – give us 40D on PS3 with no adverts at all.
Source: NMA
Jim H [Teabags]
I use the iPlayer and 4OD a fair bit on my PlayStation 3, but I have never even caught a glimpse of the ITV Player.
david24
I’ve only ever used it to watch the btcc, the userface is horrible and quite broken. It’s as if they disigned it for the Wii
philzy85
Theres never anything good on ITV, I dont even watch it on my STB!!
Foxhound_Solid
I aint paying to watch celebjuice again. They get get effed.
tonyyeb
Most stuff on ITV isn’t worth watching the first time round let alone as a repeat.
cc_star
My opinion also, although the wheels that Michael Grade set in motion appear to be bearing some fruit
Some of the original programming (non-Cowell stuff) has improved massively & as the BBC heads into dumbed-down and popularist territory (see any Richard Hammond documentary for details) along with stuff like John Barrowman’s Saturday night rubbish, there are signs that ITV has upped its game with good programs like Penn & Teller and interesting concepts like Show Me The Funny
Of course there’s still some way to go, but I think there are signs that in the long term ITV might not be as rubbish as I think it always has been.
Gaztee
The ONLY thing I watched on the itv player was the Penn & Tellar shows. I was shocked that they left the ads in there! Won’t be heading back there anytime soon!
Forrest_01
Will just have to make a point of watching Britains Got Talent when it’s on then i guess!
That is pretty much the only thing i watch on ITV, as the rest is all so wonderfully pants.
td_rules
both 4OD and ITV Player on PS3 are atrocious, but as it is a closed system and no competitors there’s no reason to improve and they will nickel and dime you because you have no other option to watch ITV on the PS3
3shirts
Well there is the option to avoid it altogether. I’ll take that. The BBC have set the bar very high with their online services but ITV don’t even seem to be trying.
Rocket_345
Don’t watch much TV shows on ITV anyway. All i watch is Penn and Teller on a Saturday night so they can charge as much as they like but i certainly won’t be paying.
Sympozium
As I boil in the heat of Northern Irish summer and eat limited edition King Prawn McCoys crisps.. all I can think of is WTF. Why would anyone pay for Uplayer (Northern Ireland version) its awful.
Paranoimia
Meh. Don’t use it anyway, as I don’t watch anything on ITV. It will be interesting to see if they also start charging via Virgin Media’s On Demand system.
It’s bad enough that we have to pay the license fee to fund the BBC, and pay subscription fees for other channels which advertise, such as Sky Sports/Movies etc. so I certianly won’t pay to watch content from free-to-air channels.
If ITV are feeling the pinch, perhaps they should consider shutting down ITV2, 3 and 4 to save some money. Come to think of it, same goes for BBC with 3 and 4, and all those pointless radio channels.
cc_star
BBC1 & Radio1 should be first to go, commercial channels are more than able to make populist stuff leaving the BBC to concentrate on stuff that isn’t commercially viable like BBC2 programming & niche stuff on BBC3 & 4 and those digital radio stations.
The licence fee almost makes sense when you’re paying for stuff you can’t get elsewhere but when it’s used for soaps, phone-in audience vote shows & chart music that are omnipresent through commercial endeavours it looks very dodgy indeed.
3shirts
I totally disagree about BBC3. It might have a lot of rubbish but some gems like Little Britain, Gavin and Stacey and Mighty Boosh have come from there. The fact that they don’t have to pull big audiences to get the advertising money in means they can take a lot more risks, putting on edgier or more unusual comedy.
Tuffcub
I watch BBC1,2,3 and 4. All of them have their merits and are worth the license fee.
Jaffa-the-Cake
here here Tuffcub. @ cc_star, just because you don’t watch/ listen to it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the license fee. BBC 3 is vital for pilots that eventually make it onto primetime bbc 1 or 2. Radio 1 is also essential for introducing new music, look at how successful the radio1 big weekend is.
Smallville2106
Silly IMO.
Amphlett
The last thing I watched on ITV was the England World Cup match on ITV HD, the game where we missed the first goal thanks to a mis-timed advert. Bunch of numpties.
Now they want patments for re-runs of their tripe? I’m writing a note now for the missus conceeding that if I ever pay to watch their tatty ITV Player that she can check me in to the local asylum.
cc_star
Just to play devils advocate for a second
As it stands BBC iPlayer only offers 7 day catch-up, whereas on the PS3 4oD does the same, leaving out 4oD’s most useful feature from the desktop of archive programs and whole series
Perhaps the transactions will be to offer stuff that neither competing service offers, over 7 days old or archive & whole series etc
Of course whether there’s the quality of the programming to make sure there is something worth paying for is open to debate.
hazelam
bbc offer some of their programs for longer than 7 days though, i know the torchwood episodes are going to be up for something like two months, at least the first two are.
and top gear’s like two weeks.
and yes, that is including the iplayer on ps3.
Kevling
BBC iPlayer was originally 7 days only for everything. Now for many series they leave the full series up until 7 days after the final episode.
Tuffcub
Correctamnudo – anything BY the BBC stays online for ages, it’s only non BBC stuff that stays for 7 days, like films.
Jaffa-the-Cake
EVERYTHING that has ever been on channel 4 or 5 is available FOR FREE and with few adverts on their respective 4OD and Demand5 channels Youtube. This is how catch up tv should work. For ITV to think they can charge for free to air tv they must have a screw loose. People will just sky+ it and then put it up for download. They’ll never win.
Carl
To demonoid we go.
Oh wait, ITV is shit anyway
dude90
I don’t watch ITV it’s got mostly rubbish shows that I wouldn’t exactly call great TV.