USDTV, an acronym for U.S. Digital Television, was an over-the-air,

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

service in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Based in

Draper, Utah Draper is a city in Salt Lake and Utah counties in the U.S. state of Utah, about south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. As of the 2020 census, the population is 51,017, up from 7,143 in 1990. Draper is part of two metropolitan areas; ...

near

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, it was founded in 2003 and started service there in 2004. The company ceased operations March 12, 2007. USDTV leased subchannel space from local TV stations for its subscription TV service. USDTV ended services in 2007.

History

U.S. Digital Television was formed in June 2003 and launched its service as a test in

near the end of 2003. On March 16, 2004, 1000 subscribers signed up with no advertising. US Digital also launched into the

Albuquerque, New Mexico Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...

, market. At that time, the company expected to enter the

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

market next and an additional 30 markets by the end of the year. * In the fourth quarter 2004, fifth-generation chips and ATSC tuners would be supplied by LG for USDTV tuners and would be available. In September 2005,

Hearst-Argyle Television Hearst Television, Inc. (formerly Hearst-Argyle Television) is a broadcasting company in the United States owned by Hearst Communications. From 1998 to mid-2009, the company traded its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ...

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

Companies, News Corp.'s

Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Corp ...

LIN TV LIN Media was an American holding company founded in 1994 that operated 43 television stations. All except one were affiliates of the television in the United States#Major broadcast networks, six major U.S. television networks. One of the re ...

, and Morgan-Murphy Stations broadcasters invested $26 million in the company.Alt URL
/ref> Steven Lindsley indicated that the investing broadcasting companies did not think that the service would be able to compete against the cable companies, thus withdrawing support from USDTV. On July 6, 2006, in Delaware Bankruptcy Court, the company filed for Chapter 7. While USDTV filed for liquidation bankruptcy, the company continued to operate in its four markets while two other companies were interested in purchasing its assets to continue the service. Investors at bankruptcy were USDTV (28.28%), and those with 12.35% each: Hearst-Argyle (split between HATV Investments Inc. and Hearst Broadcasting), LIN Television Corp., McGraw-Hill Ventures Inc., News-USDTV Holdings Inc. and Telcom DTV LLC. The company was placed under the control of a trustee, Alfred Thomas Giuliano. In September 2006, NexGen Telecom, an original investor, purchased the assets of the company for a reported $1 million cash. NexGen had a major loss in another investment in fourth quarter 2006 forcing them to curtail their ongoing investment in USDTV. When no new bridge funding could be found, US Digital ended services in March 2007.

Services

USDTV served customers in and near

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

, and

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

. The company used extra

bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...

stations to send channels to subscribers who had a special

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

digital tuner provided by the company and an attic- or roof-mounted antenna which were available nationwide via

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

and in the West by RC Willey furniture and electronics stores. The USDIGITAL brand boxes sold where the service was not available operated like an ordinary digital television tuner. Two technology companies, eWest and ServicePower, partnered to help clients install the equipment while self-installers would get two months free. The cost for the basic-tier service was $19.95 per month. USDTV also offered

Starz! Starz (stylized as STARZ since 2016; pronounced "stars") is an American premium cable and satellite television network owned by Lions Gate Entertainment, and is the flagship property of parent subsidiary Starz Inc. Programming on Starz consists ...

for an additional monthly fee. The basic tier started out with 11 cable channels:

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...

Disney Channel Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...

Toon Disney Toon Disney was an American multinational pay television channel owned by Disney Channels Worldwide, a subsidiary of Disney-ABC Television Group. The channel's target audience was children ages 2–11, and children ages 6–13 during the Jetix ...

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

TLC TLC may refer to: Arts and entertainment Television * ''TLC'' (TV series), a 2002 British situational comedy television series that aired on BBC2 * TLC (TV network), formerly the Learning Channel, an American cable TV network ** TLC (Asia), an As ...

Lifetime Lifetime may refer to: * Life expectancy, the length of time a person is expected to remain alive Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Lifetime (band), a rock band from New Jersey * ''Life Time'' (Rollins Band album), by Rollins Band * ...

Lifetime Movie Network LMN (also known previously as Lifetime Movies, and an initialism for Lifetime Movie Network) is an American pay television network owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between the Disney Media Networks subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company and t ...

, Home & Gardening Television,

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

, and the

Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...

. By July 2003, the service had 30 channels.

References

{{CATV USA Digital television in the United States Mass media companies established in 2003 Mass media companies disestablished in 2007 Companies that have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Defunct broadcasting companies of the United States Defunct companies based in Utah American subscription television services 2003 establishments in Utah