From 10 December 2002, ITV Digital's liquidators started to ask customers to return their set top boxes or pay a £39.99 fee. Had this been successful, it could have threatened to undermine the fledgling Freeview service, since at the time most digital terrestrial receivers in households were ONdigital and ITV Digital legacy hardware. In January 2003, Carlton and Granada stepped in and paid £2.8m to the liquidators to allow the boxes to stay with their customers, because at the time the ITV companies received a discount on their broadcasting licence payments based on the number of homes they had converted to digital television. It was also likely done to avoid further negativity towards the two companies.