Virgin v Sky

MattEg

MattEg

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Matthew Egan
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I'm following this dispute with interest.

For years I've thought Sky over bid for program rights, because they
know they can charge what they want to recoup the funds they've outlaid.
For this reason I have not and will never subscribe to their services.

Now Virgin Media are standing their ground and refusing to cough up the
excessive charges Sky are asking for, (hopefully they don't cave in).

This is all down to sky asking for twice the amount of money for their content.
They have already offered a reduced price which would save Virgin £2m,
but they will still need to find an extra £17m (approx) to pay for the content.

Hopefully the outcome from this will be that all TV becomes cheaper and
some of the content finds its way to the other channels, that we don't need to pay for.
 
I've recently switched from Sky to VM, loving every minute of this and I'm glad that someone is finally standing up to the "untouchable" sky.

Whats really naff is that a fortnight before this dispute, VM had agreed with Sky that they could have the flexfilm (PPV movies) stuff at a reduced rate. Talk about stabbing people in the back.

Sky One is mostly filled with repeats although they do have the UK exclusivity for Lost and 24 which I can see some people getting annoyed about losing. Apart from that its Angel (have them all on dvd), the simpsons (have some on dvd, couldn't care less about missing them), or stargate (not bothered about).

Its worth noting that VM own all of the Living channels, Bravo and challenge - Living has the UK CSI deal and thats a very big show over here.

I think I also read that if sky do go through with this and lose the VM customers they would lose £45m in advertising revenue.

Do I regret changing to VM? Not in the slightest. They offer something that Sky never can - TV on demand, the ability to say to yourself "right, I fancy watching shameless, season 2, episode 4, NOW". Its like having a DVD collection in your room. This service is also free.

Sky is only one way communication which is why their ppv stuff starts in 15 minute intervals and not when you are ready. Thats why they have launched sky broadband - they need to get an ADSL line into every house that has Sky so that they can launch a rival, similar sort of service.

This sort of thing can only be good for the customer in the long run, competition is great for the market. Monopoly is not.
 
Didn't those programs start on terrestrial channels?
Because they are popular and had high viewer ratings, Sky jump in to take away
the revenue from the original channel that showed it.
 
Lost was definately on FIVE to begin with, Sky outbid them with the pricing last year, so there were millions of people who couldn't watch the second series of lost anyway.

24 I think started on BBC1, sky did the same
 
I'm with VM and i'm not bothered about Sky basics. If it means my bill increases by £10 per month then drop the channels :)
 
:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

:D

Down here we have DSTV with about 70 odd channels at the equivalent of about 25 quid per month (400 odd ZA Rands.)

If it wasn't for National Geographic, Discovery and the History Channel I wouldn't even bother.
 
Is VM TV cable only at the minute?
 
Jason said:
Is VM TV cable only at the minute?
Click to expand...

I think so, as it took over NTL and Telewest.

If I lose Sky, then it's no big deal - there's never anything on there anyway other than repeats.
 
Ah well never mind. I'm geting rid of SKY and my ISP and was looking to get an all in one broadband digital TV package, i thought VM had answers my prayers.
 
lost was on E4 first.

Vm put an add in the paper last week saying sky took its ball away, and sky have an announcement on site saying that they were still negotiating, so one of them is being economical with the truth, and as an announcement is due today as to what the negotiations have led to, i would guess VM where pulling a fast one!
 
Jason said:
Ah well never mind. I'm geting rid of SKY and my ISP and was looking to get an all in one broadband digital TV package, i thought VM had answers my prayers.
Click to expand...

sky do a phone/BB/tv package:D
 
Yeah but i can't get that where i live at the minute, i'm a wooly back you see :LOL:

And SKY TV costs tooooooo much
 
Sky provide us with phone, broadband and tv at what I consider a fair price, we have also had excellent service from them. The Virgin channels are the ones we do not watch.
 
Jason said:
And SKY TV costs tooooooo much
Click to expand...
Yup.
I'm running Telewest TV-Drive (Now Virgin V+). The inferior SKY+ system is a lot more expensive, see below

Sky+ HD
Sky+ HD : £399
Installation : £120
Monthly HD Sub : £10
Monthly Sky+ Sub : £10

1 Year Total : £760


Virgin V+
Monthly Sub : £10

1 Year Total : £120

Virgin V+ is therefore £640 cheaper :)
 
You lot don't know you're born.

All I've got is crappy BFBS here in Germany - Channels 1 & 2 show selected highlights from UK TV, there's also The Hits music channel, Sky Sports 1 & 2 and Sky News.
Problem with that is when there's Rugby; Footie; Cricket; Golf etc on in the UK, you can potentially have four channels all showing Sport and nothing else to watch other than the news and music vids.
We can (illegally) get Sky installed, but the connections in the new PUMA blocks are haphazard to say the least, as is my effing t'internet connection.
 
SDK^ said:
Yup.
I'm running Telewest TV-Drive (Now Virgin V+). The inferior SKY+ system is a lot more expensive, see below

Sky+ HD
Sky+ HD : £399
Installation : £120
Monthly HD Sub : £10
Monthly Sky+ Sub : £10

1 Year Total : £760


Virgin V+
Monthly Sub : £10

1 Year Total : £120

Virgin V+ is therefore £640 cheaper :)
Click to expand...


Is the virgin V+ HD ready then? and apart from the monthly submission of £10 are there any other costs?
 
lee said:
Is the virgin V+ HD ready then? and apart from the monthly submission of £10 are there any other costs?
Click to expand...

Virgin Media is NTL:Telwest
NTL Telewest launched TV Drive last year - I've had it since May 2006.
The only difference with V+ is the boxes are black instead of silver.

I'm not sure what the new customer V+ costs are. I was already using Cable TV with 2 boxes (1 downstairs and 1 upstairs) so the extra cost for me was just £5 per month :)
 
Thanks.

And I have to agree with you the sky prices are mad.

I got a HD tv a couple of months back and refuse to pay the £399 plus £10 extra subscription per month to watch a few programs in HD, no matter how much I want to get the most out of my TV.

Cheers.... :goes off to search virgin prices: :)
 
I can't get anythign but sky or terrestrial so it is really a no brainer for me. WE got sky+ for £100 plus £10 extra a month. So I don't think that was too bad. Not even interested in HD as there aren't enough shows out there yet. Now an HD DVD player... that is a different story.
 
Egods! Who are all these people who need umpteen channels (mostly crap) and have no life other than in front of the t.v.? Freeview has more than enough for us.
:bonk:
 
If you are already with Virgin they will do deals to keep you that they do not advertise.

Customer services will not offer them to you - you have to speak to 'retentions' a number they give you when you say you want to leave.

Or you can just phone the number and say you have seen a good sky deal and ask what they can do as you want to stay with cable but....

Ex Telewest number is 0800 073 0591 and ex ntl is 0800 052 9403.

Used to have ADSL back in work days and it was never as reliable as cable so I didn't actually want to leave ntl/virgin. I now have added day+ evening/weekend calls and a V+ box to what I already had for £4.50 less than I was paying before the call :) Oh and no install charge (no install until 17th March though as the box is popular).
Reading Digitalspy forum others seem to have done even better but the deal seems good enough to me :)

The V+ is HD and if I had a HD TV they do a HD install which gives you a free cable. Again from reading Digitalspy there is very little actual HD content yet.
 
PAH!! I want cable :crying:
 
i think sky knocked £100 of the HD box and installtion is £60 at the moment, waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too expensive for me though
 
The price for that box is extortionate.
You can buy a HD Sat receiver for less than £200 with more options than the sky box can offer, so why do sky have a premium price on their box?

This is why sky doesn't want to lose the Virgin Media output.
Reports have estimated that if no deal is reached Sky stands to lose around £60 million from its channels being removed from 3.3 million Virgin Media homes, with some analysts calculating Sky will need to gain about 150,000 Virgin customers to make up the revenue shortfall.
Click to expand...
 
Also, to top it off....Remember the big thing about Sky offering half price deals left right and centre, and money off HD boxes etc etc a few months ago?

Theyre now clamping down, and if you call to cancel in the hope they'll offer you a nice hefty discount to keep you..they won't. They're calling your bluff and letting you cancel.

My 6-month half price subscription runs out today, and I am actually sorely tempted to cancel. We only watch a handful of the channels we pay for now anyway, and we're only on a 2 mix package.
 
Don't forget, when the analog switch off happens, you may be able to get an HD freeview box.
So you don't need sky to watch HD.
 
Freeview standard is digital anyway so it wont matter re HD as thats a seperate service !

If i could get discovery on freeview i would cancel sky this minute, its the only channel i really watch on there and would miss !
 
freeview havent been allocated any channels for HD yet, which is a little worrying...

any news on this sky/virgin thing yet? nto found anything on the wire
 
I must admit I do miss discovery.

The thing is though, I dont watch much TV nowadays. I tend to not watch them when they air, instead downloading them and watching them a few days later instead.
 
Virgin are awaiting a response from sky.
If sky don't respond today, Virgin will flick the switch.

A bit of news for you lost fans.
Virgin have bought the rights to show lost seasons 1 to 3.
 
I only got Sky in the first place for the speedway on Sky Sports - until I can get that somewhere else we're pretty much tied to Sky, sadly.
 
Sky sports and movies will still be shown on Virgin Media.
These channels are not affected.
 
OOH - might well be worth us looking then. Cheers Matt!
 
Matt said:
Virgin are awaiting a response from sky.
If sky don't respond today, Virgin will flick the switch.

A bit of news for you lost fans.
Virgin have bought the rights to show lost seasons 1 to 3.
Click to expand...

Look out for VirginONE appearing at midnight? ;)
 
its like a soap opera. Virgin paint sky to be the bad guys, sky say they have made a great offer and virgin are being unreasonable, virgin come back and say sky want too much, then say they will show lost on demand with seasons 1 and 2 from august, but not 3 till sky have finished showing it....ooohhhhhhhhhhh the drama
 
matty said:
freeview havent been allocated any channels for HD yet, which is a little worrying...

any news on this sky/virgin thing yet? nto found anything on the wire
Click to expand...

Not sure if freeview has enough bandwidth / channel space for HD :thinking:
 
mrgubby said:
Not sure if freeview has enough bandwidth / channel space for HD :thinking:
Click to expand...


there is a petition around to get some channels allocated to freeview for HD, as there are none at the moment. if no channels are specified, then there will be no HD freeview
 
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