virgin media

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virgin media

As luck would have it all ready changing from NTL to Sky :D

No complaints about NTL other than they have got to costly paying £37 a month for internet :(

Steve
 
Custard, I assume this isn't a lie due to libel/slander:

Virgin Media claims Sky wanted to negotiate double the previous rate.
The Virgin Media chief executive, Steve Burch, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning that he'd never heard of a broadcaster threatening to pull its channels, and said that even though Virgin is a rival of Sky it is also a customer.
 
end of the day paul its not a good way to tell customers though is it?
all over edinburgh(and i assume the UK) every VM customer is getting loads of letters,promo material etc on how great everythings going to be.

then im driving home and hear this on the radio

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6390655.stm

so virgin media save millions and just keeps pricing the same.not impressed
 
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But I don't get your gripe (we use Sky at home, I have multiroom) - what in the world can VM do? This is Sky's fault it seems and they're abusing their position in the market, even putting adverts on Sky saying that VM customers will lose Sky shortly to put pressure on VM.

Not sure how else they could tell people? Either you want the news to not be reported or the deals to be done in top secret.

The nature of these negotiations leads us to believe that this outcome has been deliberately engineered by Sky in order to suppress competition and coerce Virgin Media's customers into switching to its service by denying them access to the basic channels," said the company in a statement.
"This view is reinforced by Sky's decision to broadcast, at the height of negotiations on February 12, a series of promotions claiming that the channels were about to disappear from Virgin Media's network. This was nothing more than a heavy-handed attempt to exert undue influence on the negotiating process."

I think it's disgusting of Sky.
 
virgin could have sent a letter to all customers explaining this situation paul.
it costs very little(in real terms) to do a mailsort bulk mailing

i dont like hearing about stuff like this when just today they were sending letters of all the great stuff coming.
all ive seen is skinning of the existing services and even then its staggered.NTL in glasgow have had some upgrades and actually have more channels than telewest customers though i guess not next week
 
virgin could have sent a letter to all customers explaining this situation paul.
it costs very little(in real terms) to do a mailsort bulk mailing

i dont like hearing about stuff like this when just today they were sending letters of all the great stuff coming.
all ive seen is skinning of the existing services and even then its staggered.NTL in glasgow have had some upgrades and actually have more channels than telewest customers though i guess not next week
And they will, but the news leaked it instead?
 
I think it's disgusting of Sky.

There is nothing wrong with Sky protecting it's market. At the end of the day they are the broadcasters. I think what is more interesting about the situation is that Virgin isn't going to reduce the subscription when they loose the Sky channels. This either means they are paying next to nothing for the channels or they are struggling to finance their operation and in effect putting the price up to Virgin customers.

Virgin tried to take over the ITV network and I am sure if they had managed it we would have seen the reverse situation. Sky were pretty clever to block the take over.
 
There is nothing wrong with Sky protecting it's market. At the end of the day they are the broadcasters. I think what is more interesting about the situation is that Virgin isn't going to reduce the subscription when they loose the Sky channels. This either means they are paying next to nothing for the channels or they are struggling to finance their operation and in effect putting the price up to Virgin customers.

Virgin tried to take over the ITV network and I am sure if they had managed it we would have seen the reverse situation. Sky were pretty clever to block the take over.

Competition Commission are likely to have something to say about it! Sky won't get away with it if they have offered a deal that is non-proportional of their costs and VM's gain - it's not allowed.
 
Competition Commission are likely to have something to say about it! Sky won't get away with it if they have offered a deal that is non-proportional of their costs and VM's gain - it's not allowed.

They can't touch them, it is not a regulated sector and as it is non terrestrial it is even harder. It doesn't have to be based on their costs, they can set the market rate to be whatever they like. If it were a free to air service and they restricted access from one distibutor to another there would be more of a case but even then being non terrestrial it would be hard. You can treat Sky 1 etc the same as Sky Movies, they are subscription channels.

I still think the bigger question is why Virgin won't reduce prices to compensate customers or add it onto an enhanced package for an extra £2 or something.
 
I am off to continue reading a good year, I will reply when I am less relaxed :)

It's only television anyway, the majority of it will be repeated in a few months and half of it is rubbish as well.

You see all the argument between Sky and Virgin about this and you are off to read a book instead :)
 
I don`t see how Virgin can disadvantage their customers over this. OK if we can`t have sky as part of the package, they should toss in a free movie channel, or two. That would be far better than sky one, sky news for most people.
Sad how Virgins takover seems to be defined by the loss of Sky channels though, when all seemed fine before....(n)
 
I don`t see how Virgin can disadvantage their customers over this. OK if we can`t have sky as part of the package, they should toss in a free movie channel, or two. That would be far better than sky one, sky news for most people.
Sad how Virgins takover seems to be defined by the loss of Sky channels though, when all seemed fine before....(n)

Virgin is promising exclusive own-channel content though, instead of sky, which people never had before VM existed.

Think it's coincidence that it happened now, although I bet Sky wouldn't have done it to NTL since NTL was less of a threat.
 
Well I saw the film before reading the book, so far the film is better :( Hence I'll take a break from it now :(

Sky is covered by the Competition Commission, I was surprised when you said not, but I checked and CC say that sort of thing is, as does all the previous Sky ventures:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sour...:2005-26,RNWE:en&q=competition+commission+sky

They are as a company of course regulated by the competition commission in terms of providing their own service (i.e the installers contracted to install it) and of course in what and who they are allowed to own. But the content element is not regulated in terms of competition for pay TV. It's like the sports rights, they are sold to the highest bidder and just because Sky got to show it on Sky Sports channels, doesn't mean that ITV should be allowed to show it for the same price, it's the same as when channels bid for popular TV series. In no way is Sky preventing Virgin from starting it own TV channel and bidding for the program rights. That is where competition rules apply, it is similar to Mac saying they want Microsoft to supply them with low costs copies of their operating system. It's a fair competition in terms of who has the best product and which consumers will buy.

So they can't touch them in the respect of programming.
 
I am not sure that's correct though, they are providing a service which is only available through them now, thus limiting consumer choice and abusing their position in the market place. It will obviously be seen as a move to force people that like sky 1-3 to move to sky, thereby turning a USP into a way of forcing consumers to have no choice but to go with sky.
 
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