Viewers get chocolate box choice

Everyone with a television set in Britain will be able to choose from 30 channels by early next year - and all they will need is a box, about the size of a chocolate box, costing less than pounds 200.

In the most dramatic development since the arrival of colour television in 1967, three rival consortia are competing to make the much-hyped digital revolution a practical reality for the three-quarters of the United Kingdom's population who have yet to enter the multi-channel era.

The huge commercial interest shown in digital terrestrial television - which emerged shortly before noon yesterday, the Independent Television Commission deadline for digital television licences - is so strong that some media analysts are even starting to sound the death-knell for satellite dishes.

But Rupert Murdoch is boxing clever as ever. The satellite giant BSkyB, in which he holds a 40 per cent stake, controls the set-top boxes crucial to both satellite and terrestrial digital. Yesterday it said it is joining forces with the biggest existing forces in British terrestrial television -Carlton, Granada and the BBC - in order to mount a joint bid for three of the six digital "multiplexes" (or groups of frequencies) up for grabs.

This unprecedented alliance is proposing to create a giant new grouping, called British Digital Broadcasting, which would offer viewers all the existing terrestrial channels, new free channels plus the choice of 15 subscription channels.

The basic subscription package would include Sky One, new Carlton films and entertainment channels, Granada Plus, Sports Club, Good Life and television shopping plus Public Eye. It would also offer four already planned BBC channels, serving up classic repeats and new lifestyle and music programming, plus BBC One TV, based on Radio One

Viewers not sated by the above menu can splash out more to subscribe to a further three premium channels: Sky Movies, the Movie Channel and Sky Sports.

Unveiling the pounds 300m venture, Carlton's chairman, Michael Green, enthused: "Going digital is the most important development for British television since the introduction of colour."

Mr Green forecast the end of traditional analogue television in a few years as fully integrated sets came on to the market with built-in decoders. "By bringing together Britain's three most successful commercial broadcasters and the BBC, we can play a key role in bringing about this revolution," he said.

Roy Payne, of the Cable Communications Association, described BSkyB's involvement in the consortium as "interesting", commenting: "I wonder the extent to which it's an admission that there isn't a future in direct- to-home satellites."

The other big bidder to emerge yesterday, Digital Television Network, is claiming to be even more revolutionary. Using the same basic set-top boxes - which it says it will subsidise in order to create a low-entry cost - DTN, part of the American-owned NTL/CableTel group, is proposing to offer British viewers not only a batch of new channels but also a range of interactive services, such as home shopping and Internet access. Its chief executive, Jeremy Thorp, said yesterday: "We've proposed a multimedia solution tailored to the needs of the UK mass TV audience."

Mr Thorp said he had the "perfect team" to put the vast majority of the British population on the information superhighway.

But the team does not include Lord Hollick's United News and Media, or the French pay-television channel Canal Plus, both of which withdrew their expected backing at the eleventh hour.

Steve Wagner, DTN's director of marketing and subscriber management, said: "We've always believed in digital terrestrial. We know UK consumers through CableTel and we know that they aren't just looking for 200 more channels. They want quality programming and interactive services which have real value for them."

The science and technology minister, Ian Taylor, said the strong commercial interest gave "the lie to all the Jeremiahs and the prophets of doom who said that DTT would be of no commercial interest and that digital would be monopolised by one company". He added: "The major players are now at the table."

The ITC is insisting that successful applicants must launch their new services by July next year at the latest.