CityLife

Comic duo win TV battle

COMEDY actor Johnny Vegas and a stuffed puppet monkey are being credited with reviving the fortunes of ITV's digital service.

The St Helens-based performer and the puppet star as Al and Monkey in a comedy advertising campaign to relaunch ITV Digital.

The service formerly known as ONdigital, has boosted subscriber numbers to 1.2 million in the last quarter. Joint owners Granada and Carlton communications, said it signed up 82,000 customers in the three months to September 30 and was on track to reach its break-even target of 1.7 million subscribers by April 2004.

ITV chief executive Stuart Prebble said the boosted numbers — ahead of analyst expectations of 57,000 — were ''primarily the success of the rebranding'' and the Al and Monkey campaign.

Vegas plays a naive comic stooge who marvels at the features of ITV Digital in the £10m ad campaign. United star Ryan Giggs appeared in one of the adverts.

''We will continue to build on these encouraging figures as the business moves towards break even,'' Stuart Prebble added. ''We have delivered on the plans outlined in April — we have rebranded the business, launched ITV Sport Channel, exceeded subscriber targets, improved on our churn target and achieved all this at a lower than projected cost.''

The group, which was rebranded in July, added it had made a ''breakthrough'' in the commercial market, boosted by its ITV Sport channel, and had more than 4,500 pubs and bars now signed up. ITV Digital, which has cost £800 million so far, is expected to cost another £300 million to bring it to break-even, Mr Prebble said.

The firm has been driving down costs, and said next year would see a significant reduction in funding requirements from its shareholders as a result of increasing revenues, falling acquisition costs and lower staff costs, including a pay freeze for ITV Digital staff and management.

The figures however come amid mounting speculation about the future of ITV Digital, with Granada and Carlton said to be considering a commercial bail-out of the business.