Homechoice customers urged to dump service over chimp ad

ADI has slammed Homechoice about the ads, claiming primates suffer being "caged, chained and depraved of normal social interactions" when used for entertainment.

ADI spokesperson Jean Creamer has urged Homechoice customers to cancel their subscriptions.

"If a family brand like Homechoice think it is reasonable to demean primates in this way to promote their services, then we must encourage our supporters to boycott Homechoice and their customers to cancel subscriptions." 

A Homechoice spokesman defended the ads. "The chimp was used for a pre-agreed time of two hours maximum, given regular breaks and refreshments and was supervised by its trainer at all times. At no time was the chimp distressed," he said.

Meanwhile, Video Networks, the owner of Homechoice, has accrued reports losses of £46.5m in 2004, up from £1.5m the year before.

The company will also have to compete with Sky, NTL/Telewest and BT in the increasingly competitive TV broadband market.

Last week, BSkyB bought Easynet for £211m, its first step into the broadband TV arena, and last month NTL and Telewest confirmed their £6bn merger, creating the largest provider of triple play services in the UK with 5m subscribers. BT this week announced details of its own TV over broadband service.

Homechoice provides on-demand programmes spanning comedy, drama, music soaps, pay-per-view movies, home shopping and a broadband internet service and telephone service. It currently has 15,000 subscribers but has recently doubled the amount of homes that could receive the service to 2.5m.

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