NTL acquires ITV Digital's customers for 50p a head

NTL, the cable group, continued to step up its customer acquisition strategy with the purchase of ITV Digital's database of 2 million customers.

It is thought that NTL, which had put customer growth on the back burner in the past few months while it tackled its financial crisis, paid about £1m to buy the subscriber records of ITV Digital. Although ITV Digital had about 1 million customers left when it was put into administration at the end of March, the database includes details of households that once subscribed to the service but had cancelled their contracts.

It is the first major asset sold by the administrator, Deloitte & Touche. ITV Digital's set-top boxes, a call centre and its monkey advertising mascot remain up for grabs. Deloitte yesterday sacked 400 workers at the Plymouth call centre.

Stephen Carter, the managing director of NTL, said: "With thousands of former ITV Digital customers looking for a new digital service, we intend to win more than our fair share."

ITV Digital's terrestrial technology is not compatible with cable so NTL would need to convince these households to pay to take a cable service. NTL's network passes around a third of homes in UK.

NTL will aggressively market its service to those on the ITV Digital database that fall within its network areas. Earlier this week, NTL signalled its intent when it announced an order of 300,000 set-top boxes from Pace Micro Technology.

Industry sources said NTL, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy but believes that it is getting through its financial problems, is to take on BSkyB's satellite TV service. Unlike Sky, NTL can also offer telephony and internet access.

One insider said: "NTL is on the trail of new digital TV customers. They are gearing up for a scrap with Sky."

Telewest, the other cable player, and Sky are also signing up former ITV Digital customers, although only NTL will have the names and addresses of all its stranded former subscribers.