Virgin Media(ex-Telewest/NTL) Pulls plug on Sky News, Sky One etc

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Matt by the way I hope you realize that breaking the law to prove your point isn't impressing anyone.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:37 (seventeen years ago) link

The squariel concept was pretty good but it is interesting that no one else has ever used the concept.

― Ed, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:40 (seventeen years ago) link

(I'm not really defending Sky here, I think the consumer is the loser here, but I very much doubt Ofcom will take any steps to prohibit this sort of thing and under current rules Sky is perfectly entitled to do what it's done).

((Actually Virgin will be the big loser here unless it is very savvy))

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:46 (seventeen years ago) link

did Sky ever consider their own cable-based service? why did they stick by satellite dish all this time?

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:46 (seventeen years ago) link

NTL had a horrendous reputation for customer service.

From what I can work out the main difference between NTL customer service and VM customer service so far is that it now costs twice as much to phone them and tell them their kit doesn't work.

Is Virgin gaining or losing customers?

Gaining

Losing

― onimo, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:51 (seventeen years ago) link

It looks like this is ultimately going to effect Freeview too judging by the article I saw on the cover of Broadcast the other day; Sky going with their own subscription-only DTT package (requiring new hardware) and so removing Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News from free-to-air.

Michael Jones on Thursday, March 1, 2007 12:12 AM (11 hours ago)

This seems to be the consensus about Sky's strategy; my only question is - echoing blueski's question - why would they divert paying customers from their core satellite service? It can't just be to cater for people whose housing associations won't let them mount dishes.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:51 (seventeen years ago) link

how NTL survived bankruptcy is a wonder.

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:53 (seventeen years ago) link

(Or maybe I should just read the article.)

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Ah, they are gaining BB and TV customers but losing phone customers

It said it had signed 78,100 new broadband subscribers and had 38,500 total TV net additions, up from 22,200 in the previous quarter, but said it had lost 64,300 telephony customers partly due to competitive pressure.

If you scan through a few news articles it's notable that some are going with "Gained 38500" while others are going with "Lost 37000" - when neither are strictly true.

― onimo, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I think they'll lose a load of customers over this fight with Sky.

It's prompted me to look around and I've worked out I can double my broadband speed, have a better selection of TV channels and still save ~£25 per month. Thank you beardy Branson for motivating me to get off my arse and dispense with your services.

― onimo, Thursday, 1 March 2007 11:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Also Tracer the difference between TV and digital radio is that no one pays money for packages of radio stations. Unless you're talking solely about hardware in which case I think we're talking at cross-purposes.

why would they divert paying customers from their core satellite service?

Presumably either because they're planning to phase out the core satellite service over the long-term, because they can make more money for a subscription-only DTT service, or both.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Digital TV should be like digital radio (+ internet).

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Thank God I stopped working for Virgin Media when I got the chance. What a way to run a railroad! Homechoice though - they rock although I don't know how much they do now they've been taken over by Tiscali - only time can tell!

― the next grozart, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Why have Homechoice not got their red button interactive service running yet?

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Essentially the big sticking point is that Sky is the only provider with its own content (commissioned or bought in or otherwise), right? So the only way Ofcom can act is to rule you can only be a service provider or a content provider, not both.

It's entirely possible I might be misunderstanding this totally.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Worst case scenario for sky is that if OFCOM or the competition commission forces sky to breakup into content and distribution arms.

― Ed, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Sky are the only ones with enough cash to fund and make their own shows yeah. Virgin may be able to do this at some point (they already do for their in-flight entertainment) but would take a lot of time and money.

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Why have Homechoice not got their red button interactive service running yet?

Errr... I'm probably not really meant to say due to confidentiality but really it's cos of the way the service goes through telephone lines as opposed to cable/digital/satellite. It's technical really and I'm not too sure.

― the next grozart, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:20 (seventeen years ago) link

By 'content provider' I don't mean Sky make their own shows, I mean they own their own channels. Virgin and Homechoice just aggregate channels from other companies, right?

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Homechoice has it's own 'channels' except really they're just rolling ads for their interactive services i.e. video on demand. Still counts as content tho.

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:22 (seventeen years ago) link

What Virgin really need to do is quit whining and buy up some TV channels quickly. Or hope that OFCOM split Sky into content and distribution.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh actually, Virgin owns what used to be Flextech and runs Bravo etc, right? So technically they could pull that content from Sky and will probably do so as soon as they're legally allowed. Not sure whether or not that would convince many consumers not to switch to Sky, mind.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link

Bravo has Heroes (though downlooters are 15 episodes ahead).

― onimo, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I think BBC Worldwide still owns some of Flextech and it would not be a spat that they could get involved in.

― Ed, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:32 (seventeen years ago) link

But virgin media do generate their own content, at least in part - the uktv channels are owned by a joint venture of the bbc and telewest who were merged with ntl and in turn virgin media.

― leigh, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:39 (seventeen years ago) link

oops x-post

― leigh, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:42 (seventeen years ago) link

x-post But isn't Heroes going to be on BBC2 in a few months?

― Guilty_Boksen, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Presumably because a) Bravo is part-owned by BBC Worldwide, and b) Heroes will have been over on Bravo for ages by then.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:49 (seventeen years ago) link

x-post But isn't Heroes going to be on BBC2 in a few months?

Yay, you can be even further behind for free (+ licence fee).

― onimo, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:49 (seventeen years ago) link

can't virgin whatsit just get their own american tv shows?

― ken c, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:59 (seventeen years ago) link

they might be able to outbid Sky for some of them soon.

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah they'll probably bid higher for L O S T just as Sawyer jumps Old Toothy.

― onimo, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:06 (seventeen years ago) link

or, instead of this bidding thing, offer everyone who subscribe to virgin whatsit a really big fat broadband connection, plus a thing on your computer that can play mpeg videos into your virgin cable box as a channel.

i have NO IDEA what customers would do with such a set up, but just a thought.

― ken c, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:08 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not really bothered about being able to watch downloaded video on my TV for the mo. I can hook my laptop up to it if I really want to and that'll do until downloading directly onto TV really takes off.

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:19 (seventeen years ago) link

For those who've been with virgin/ntl/telewest for over a year i'd strongly recommend calling their retentions dept (not customers services) say your thinking of switching to sky and see if they'll make you a deal. With very little haggling they doubled my broadband speed and upgraded TV & phone package for no extra cost.

― Jack Half-a-Prayer, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

OK what is current cost of Virg/NTL 8 MEG broadband?

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:49 (seventeen years ago) link

They don't do 8Mb, it's 2, 4 or 10Mb at the minute.
10Mb is £35 a month.

― treefell, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:52 (seventeen years ago) link

oh right. i've got 8mb with Homechoice for around £18-20 (can't remember exact price because it's bundled with TV package which is about the same)

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:54 (seventeen years ago) link

More details from digital spy about successful renegotiated packages:

Virgin Retentions Deals

― Jack Half-a-Prayer, Thursday, 1 March 2007 13:56 (seventeen years ago) link

ok, someone talk to me about getting a dbox? pros and cons? i'm in ireland, ntl customer

― darraghmac, Thursday, 1 March 2007 14:10 (seventeen years ago) link

haha do those guys know they've all been ripped off? i pay like £25 a month and get sky sports?

― ken c, Thursday, 1 March 2007 14:11 (seventeen years ago) link

ok, someone talk to me about getting a dbox? pros and cons? i'm in ireland, ntl customer

I don't know what a dbox is, but by now I've been a customer of Chorus (utter rubbish unless you really don't care about telly and just want cheap), NTL Digital (not bad but not available where I live) and Sky (OHMYGOD I love my Sky Plus box so very, very much). Sky's absolute biggest drawback, to me, here in Ireland, is that it only offers the digital BBC channels on its Extra Services menu, and you can't record them and they're not included in the programme guide. Annoying.

― accentmonkey, Thursday, 1 March 2007 15:28 (seventeen years ago) link

DTT providers:
* Freeview (Free).
* Top Up TV Anytime (Pay Monthly).
* Setanta Sports (Pay Monthly) (Stand alone service - will be able to show live Premiership games along with Sky).
* A new service from BSkyB (To Be Confirmed).

Presumably you can't have more than one of these.

Why are BBC bothering with this FreeSat thing then?

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 15:54 (seventeen years ago) link

You can have freeview, top up tv and setanta all at the same time if you have a freeview box that accepts cards.
To get the new Sky service you'll need a new set top box that can handle the compression format that Sky plan to use.
Unless OFCOM tell them not to, of course.

― treefell, Thursday, 1 March 2007 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link

i'm fed up with the whole lot of them.

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 16:16 (seventeen years ago) link

the problem with topupTV is that it gets you approx. = jack shit, and there's like 4 boxes in the whole world that accept the card. i have no idea why anyone would need more than freeview, which is... free! that said i care approx. = 0 about european sports, and even less about "quality" US dramas (except for the Wire)

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 1 March 2007 16:27 (seventeen years ago) link

I have free sat, because the quality from the dish on the pub is better than the broken aerial from the roof. Currently, for me, freesat consists of every channel on the sky platform.

― Ed, Thursday, 1 March 2007 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

also sat box and hookup to the dish were free.

― Ed, Thursday, 1 March 2007 16:40 (seventeen years ago) link

are you saying you've haxx0red the pub's sky tv?

― blueski, Thursday, 1 March 2007 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link

i used to rent from a guy who had some kind of weird descrambled german satellite hookup - it could receive signals from like 20 different satellites (with names like... firebird?); i got al-jazeera which i was very excited about until i realized i couldn't understand a word of it. i also got "iraq TV" which was just color bars :( .. also oman tv, loads of others, including BBC World, which is such a vast improvement over News 24 it's not even funny. most of the channels were in german, though, which was pretty unhelpful.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 1 March 2007 16:56 (seventeen years ago) link

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