Channel crossing proves bumpy ride

The first of July dawned and, as part of my customary pre-season ritual, I started planning my weekends for the year. I'd heard that ITV had bought the Football League and, as I'd quite acquired the Nationwide Sunday lunchtime habit, I thought it would be advisable to make some investigations.

I started with the January, 2001 brochure published by ONdigital, the former name of what is now ITV Digital. This promised me all my ''traditional ITV favourites now utterly transformed by digital technology". Because of the anti-monopoly rules the package could include Sky Sports 1, 2 and 3 as well as Sky One so I could catch all the football and The Simpsons. By going interactive, I could actually be Homer Simpson by ordering pizza without moving from the sofa.

Providing I didn't live in Wales, I could also, for a modest premium, subscribe to a channel offering ''adult entertainment" from midnight to 5.30am seven days a week. Why was Wales excluded? Had they had a referendum like they did for Sunday opening? The television shop beckoned. The first television set we ever had needed to be operated by means of coins fed into a box. If my mum ran out of two-bob bits, she had a very fractious child on her hands.

I visited three shops the other week and the exercise proved far from simple. The general consensus was that I should forget about ITV Digital and stick with Sky which was cheaper and offered more choice of channels. In any event, my postcode meant I was in a band E reception area incapable of receiving the new signal, which travels terrestrially rather than via satellite.

Then I tried Dixons, who confirmed the gist of what I'd heard, and finally Curry's told me the new channel would be up and beaming in three months. "Three months!" I exclaimed, in the manner of Hancock, the blood donor. "That's very nearly a season."

But I did get hold of a new brochure, according to which Wales had seemingly foisted their views on the whole of Britain, for the adult entertainment channel had disappeared completely. However, when I reached the bit describing Men and Motors as "fast cars and women for men who like all the action", I thought, "This is for me." If only I could claw myself up from the bottom of the digital pile.

I did have a number to ring for ITV Digital. Judging by Margaret's accent, I suspect she was speaking to me from Wales, so I concentrated my enquiries on sport to the omission of anything remotely adult. She told me that, as the relevant transmitter had been improved by 9 July, I was now on the A list. Fully one week after my odyssey had begun, I could look forward to the prospect of catching some fast cars and some fast women. And not a little football action.

As it carries Sky channels, ITV Digital can offer roughly the football you were watching last season except for Sky Sports Extra with its Spanish football, MUTV and the fans' commentary option. This had never appealed to me, though. I did once try the old cricket lover's trick of turning down the volume and listening to Alan Green on my transistor. I've always been an admirer of Green, but it baffled me that he was calling the action before it happened. Then someone pointed out that there was a time delay on Sky. Was this to ensure that any naughty words were bleeped out before the sound reached my lounge, like the radio phone-ins. Then I watched Peter Reid and realised this wasn't the case.

ITV's live Nationwide matches will be played on Thursday and Sunday evenings. Give or take a pound or so, the cost will be the same for ITV and Sky. Even the pay-per-view charges will work out very similar.

If you want to watch Tuesday Champions' League live as well as on Wednesday, you'll have to go for ITV rather than Sky and hope that your pub will still be prepared to pay £500 for a Sky licence.

As the broadcasters struggle to schedule 500 live matches there will be few football-free evenings and supporters will have to contend with unfamiliar kick-off times. Clubs also have a problem: the 48-hour protocol which provides that no club will have to kick-off a match within 48 hours of the final whistle in their previous game. Clubs can be required to play Sunday and Tuesday if the Sunday match is an afternoon kick-off, but if the Sunday match is an evening kick-off, they can move a match scheduled for the following Tuesday to the Wednesday, provided their opponents are not already scheduled to play on the Thursday or Friday.

Got the picture? Happy viewing.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com