page_title: ITV Digital
section_title: News Corporation hacking allegations
hierarchical_section_title: ITV Digital / History / Post-collapse / News Corporation hacking allegations
caption_attribution_description: Rupert Murdoch
context_page_description: ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners of two franchises of the ITV network. Starting as ONdigital in 1998, the service was re-branded as ITV Digital in July 2001. Low audience figures, piracy issues and an ultimately unaffordable multi-million pound deal with the Football League led to the broadcaster suffering massive losses, forcing it to enter administration in March 2002. Pay television services ceased permanently on 1 May 2002, and the remaining free-to-air channels such as BBC One and Channel 4 had ceased when the company was liquidated in October. The terrestrial multiplexes were subsequently taken over by Crown Castle and the BBC to create Freeview later that month.
context_section_description: On 31 March 2002, French cable company Canal+ accused Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in the United States of extracting the UserROM code from its MediaGuard encryption cards and leaking it onto the internet. Canal+ brought a lawsuit against News Corporation alleging that it, through its subsidiary NDS (which provides encryption technology for Sky and other TV services from Murdoch), had been working on breaking the MediaGuard smartcards used by Canal+, ITV Digital and other non-Murdoch-owned TV companies throughout Europe. The action was later partially dropped after News Corporation agreed to buy Canal+'s struggling Italian operation Telepiu, a direct rival to a Murdoch-owned company in that country. 
  Other legal action by EchoStar/NagraStar was being pursued as late as August 2005, accusing NDS of the same wrongdoing. In 2008, NDS was found to have broken piracy laws by hacking EchoStar Communications' smart card system, however only $1,500 in statutory damages was awarded.
  On 26 March 2012, an investigation from BBC's Panorama found evidence that one of News Corporation's subsidiaries sabotaged ITV Digital. It found that NDS hacked ONdigital/ITV Digital smartcard data and leaked them through a pirate website under Murdoch's control – actions which enabled pirated cards to flood the market. The accusations arose from emails obtained by the BBC, and an interview with Lee Gibling, the operator of a hacking website, who claimed he was paid up to £60,000 per year by Ray Adams, NDS's head of security. This would mean that Murdoch used computer hacking to directly undermine rival ITV Digital. Lawyers for News Corporation claimed that these accusations of illegal activities against a rival business are "false and libellous". In June 2013 the Metropolitan Police decided to look into these allegations following a request by Labour MP Tom Watson.
caption: Rupert Murdoch possibly used hacking to indirectly weaken ITV Digital
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