[i.h]

probably worth clarifying that they can easily translate it to a general location (depends on the ISP, but at best it's the nearest town). It really does depend on the provider though, the smaller ISPs might not be any more specific than "London" or "Manchester" because that's where their HQ and/or infrastructure is whereas the likes of BT/Virgin/TalkTalk/Sky have infrastructure everywhere.

If they wanted anything more granular like what most people consider a "physical address", they'd need justifications, court orders and warrants to get the ISPs to give that up

[ASnep]

In theory you can track your IP back to a physical address, though whether its worth enforcing it for ITVX purposes is debatable.

IP location is nowhere near accurate enough for this. Most people in Southern England would end up with ITV London like 90% of the time.

[Mike]

IP location is nowhere near accurate enough for this. Most people in Southern England would end up with ITV London like 90% of the time.

Realistically the only people with the capability of locating someone's exact address through IP data are law enforcement bodies, the security service and the ISPs themselves. I can't see ITV being given the appropriate powers under (R)IPA/GDPR to request that data for the purposes of making sure you're watching Calendar and not Central News...

[Brekkie]

Easy to dismiss the importance now of the Channel 3 licence but at the very least it's probably covering its cost in the free promotion ITVX gets from it. Also think we've seen with Mr Bayes vS The Post Office this week how linear can still drive a conversation in perhaps a way streaming can't.

Of course as others have said consolidation would have happened anyway, though perhaps Thames rather than Granada would have ended up running the show.

[Spencer]

Easy to dismiss the importance now of the Channel 3 licence but at the very least it's probably covering its cost in the free promotion ITVX gets from it. Also think we've seen with Mr Bayes vS The Post Office this week how linear can still drive a conversation in perhaps a way streaming can't.

I agree to an extent. But I actually think the impact of the linear broadcast of Mr Bates has been amplified by all episodes being available straight away on ITVX.

It meant a lot of people were saying how good the whole mini-series was before all episodes had gone out on ITV1, which certainly influenced my decision to watch it.

I think this simultaneous approach is more powerful in terms of drawing in viewers than releasing something on ITVX and then months later putting it on ITV1.

I think it’s a good example of when linear and steaming can complement each other well.

[Brekkie]

Absolutely agree - I think it's a much more effective strategy especially for stripped shows to released all episodes on ITVX on the Monday so they are there but essentially it's alongside the linear airing rather than months earlier. For me too making content available as a boxset isn't so much about watching it days or weeks earlier but being able to watch it earlier the same evening, which was useful with The Traitors beginning on Wednesday.


Linking this all back together and of course going "digital", initially via digital TV and then with online delivery in mind, was used as the justification for getting rid of the regional commitments the franchises once had with the (unfounded!) idea in a digital age we would care less about local content. It's good to see ITV now building regional news into ITVX - I doubt we'll ever see regional commissions as part of it, but arguably a streaming infrastructure moving forward might could make providing some regional content more cost effective than in a linear world. Ideally it would have been the way the Local TV network went though a planned IP delivery system never materialised.

[Milkshake]

Did any of the bids publications ever end up in certain library's across the land?

[JexedBack]

Did any of the bids publications ever end up in certain library's across the land?

All bidding companies had to provide a public summary of their proposed plans for the franchise. They were made available in all major libraries for comment.
- their individual secret sealed financial bids were made public after the submission deadline and the ITC had decided if they’d passed the so called ‘Quality Threshold’

[thegeek]

I had a look at the catalogue for Glasgow's Mitchell Library, and couldn't see any ITV franchise bids, but they do have the Channel 5 licence bids available in the reference section.

(It was my first thought to check there as it's where I went to read the bids for ILR licence that was won by Saga Radio in 2005)

[IndigoTucker]

Our combined local studies/archives department in Stoke still have copies of the Midlands applications available for consumption for 1980 at least, the 1990 maybe not so much given that Central nobbled the competitors.