Two European pay-TV platforms, Spain's Quiero TV and the UK's ITV Digital have simultaneously reached the end of their struggles to survive.

Spanish pay television platform Quiero TV, Europe's second digital terrestrial television platform behind the UK's ITV Digital (formerly Ondigital), is pending formal closure following a decision by shareholders to return its DTT license to the government.

In a press statement released late Thursday evening (April 25) following a general shareholders' meeting, the company said that "current conditions make continuing unviable." The statement added that Quiero would maintain a presence in Spain through its national digital radio license and local DTT in Madrid.

A closure has been anticipated if not for the many months that Quiero has struggled financially and to attract subscribers in Spain's cut-throat pay-TV market, certainly in recent weeks after backers set April 15 as a deadline for a sale or closure on the platform.

Backed by majority shareholer Auna (Retevision), Quiero launched in May 2000 with 14 channels, many of which could already be seen on digital satellite rivals Via Digital or Canal Satelite Digital (CSD). The platform had amassed only 210,000 subscribers as of December 2001 and was reported to have suffered as much as Euros 300m in losses.

Meanwhile, a "group of Quiero employees" fired off an anonymous e-mail Thursday evening to local press, accusing Auna of "letting Quiero die for fear that we could hurt its other business units," and accusing the government of halting a potential buy-out by Grupo Prisa "for political motives."

Auna had been seeking a buyer for its 49% stake in Quiero for over a year. Quiero's minority shareholders include Media Park (18%), Sofisclave 98 (12%) and Carlton (6%).

At the same time, ITV Digital's administrators revealed that having failed to find additional funding for the struggling pay-TV platform (owned by Carlton and Granada) the company's assets would be sold off, and its broadcasting license would be returned to the ITC.