Is satellite TV fixed in Sky's orbit or heading for freedom?

Despite it being essentially a BBC creation, Freeview has turned out to be (unsurprisingly) ITV's best friend; there are fewer channels compared to SkyDigital or cable so inevitably the ITV channels on Freeview tend to get watched more than on other platforms. So any potential 'Freesat' service must naturally arouse some interest amongst ITV bosses who see it as another means of gaining ground at the expense of BSkyB.

But there are still major stumbling blocks preventing ITV1 going 'clear' on DSat, which notably involve rights issues surrounding Formula 1 and Champions League football (among others). These particular rights issues may ultimately be resolvable, but ITV's participation in Freesat may also have to ensure that a default ITV region is correctly allocated to Channel 103 in order to please regional advertisers.

And talking of regionality, an even more interesting (and important) dilemma which isn't mentioned in the MediaGuardian article are the issues of duplication. Will ITV duplicate all its regional channels (at great expense) or instead just offer a few 'major' regions as a compromise? Given the ambivalent attitude towards regionality shown by ITV plc so far, I'd vote for the latter.