Former ITV Digital customers will have to pay £39.99 to keep hold of their set-top boxes, it was announced today.

The now defunct company's liquidators, Grant Thornton, will begin the process of sending letters to the customers tomorrow, informing them of the offer. If the fee is not paid, then the box will have to be returned.

Around 1.1m boxes are estimated to still be in circulation following ITV Digital's demise earlier this year. Whilst the pay TV services offered through ITV Digital have now ceased DTT transmission, the boxes can now be used to pick up the Freeview offering of some 30 radio and TV channels.

"We're hoping there's a number of those subscribers who take up our offer to buy the boxes," said Malcolm Shierson of Grant Thornton on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning. "The box was given to people effectively on hire and had to be returned in circumstances where the subscriber ceased to subscribe or the service ceased."

He admitted that the company had no plan to deal with those customers who refused to pay or return the box.

"A few people might take that view and we'll have to deal with them at the end of the process," he added. "In the first instance we're trying to deal with those people who want to either buy or return their box."

A Grant Thornton spokesman said that the customers had a legal obligation to comply, however.

"Anyone on that deal did not own the box," he said. "They're effectively receiving [Freeview] on a box that doesn't belong to them."