N*L to lose Sky One!!!

[daz73]

Virgin slams BSkyB in TV dispute



The head of Virgin Media has accused BSkyB of "bullying" and "arrogance" after talks broke down over showing Sky One and other channels on cable TV.

Virgin Media is to drop the Sky Basics TV package, which includes Sky Travel and Sky Sports News, after Sky raised the fees it charged the cable firm.

Virgin Media was formed from the merger of *** and Virgin Mobile.

BSkyB said it was "surprised and disappointed" by the comments, and said it stood for "choice and competition".

"Sky has negotiated with ***/Virgin in good faith and has shown flexibility on price," the broadcaster said in a statement.

"We categorically reject their claims that we have broken off negotiations or that we are seeking to more than double the price of these channels."

BSkyB added that it wanted its basic channels to remain available to Virgin Media subscribers.

Too expensive

Virgin Media chief executive Steve Burch said Sky had been asking "nearly double" the price it had previously charged the cable TV operator to continue showing the Sky channels on its network.


We just weren't going to pay a ridiculous price that would have to be passed on to our customers
Steve Burch, Virgin Media chief executive

Listen to Wake Up To Money

When Mr Burch first refused to pay the asking price, Sky retaliated by showing adverts urging cable TV customers to contact Virgin Media's customer service helpline and demand the cable TV operator show Sky One.

Mr Burch told the Wake Up to Money programme on BBC Radio Five Live: "We frankly believe they never had an intent to reach an agreement with us.

"All their actions - advertising, bullying tactics claiming we didn't care about Sky's basic package - and the price they asked was just so far out of reality, we just believe it was engineered so we wouldn't reach an agreement.

"We sat down and negotiated with them in good faith. Last night we made a final offer.

"They not only rejected it but indicated they were not going to go further with negotiations even though the contract didn't expire until next week. And they indicated to us that they had planned a PR campaign for this weekend to show we wouldn't be carrying Sky Basics any more."

James Healey, senior media analyst at Ernst & Young, said the dispute between the two broadcasters was not surprising.

"Given that Sky has recently substantially reduced the amount it pays for Virgin Media's Flextech channels, Virgin Media was unlikely to accept paying double for the Sky Basic channels," he said.

Other deals

Sky One includes some popular series, such as 24, Lost and new episodes of The Simpsons.

But Virgin Media said it was confident it could compete with Sky if it did not show Sky One.

"We've been going out and signing deals with HBO, Buena Vista and Channel Four for TV shows and video on demand which will more than replace the loss of Sky One," said Mr Burch.

"We just weren't going to pay a ridiculous price that would have to be passed on to our customers."

Last year, Virgin Media's biggest shareholder, Sir Richard Branson, was infuriated by Sky's decision to buy more than £1bn worth of shares in ITV after Virgin Media had declared an interest in buying it.

The Sky shareholding effectively blocked Virgin Media's takeover plans.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6389015.stm


No more 24, Lost, Dresden Files...

[Mule]

"We categorically reject their claims that we have broken off negotiations or that we are seeking to more than double the price of these channels."

Virgin Media chief executive Steve Burch said Sky had been asking "nearly double" the price it had previously charged the cable TV operator to continue showing the Sky channels on its network.

It's easy to deny claims that haven't been made.

Personally I only use sky one for the simpsons which I will miss, looking forward to see what virgin can come up with to make up for this.

[Waka]

I won't miss Sky 1 - a load of repeats of the Simpsons, some sh1tty 'reality' shows and they finally work out Lost is a good show for series 3 when it starts to go off the boil! (which I download off usenet minus the 23 sets of adverts!)

Sky News? Now that's a really shit news channel. They can be in the middle of a news flash or any story and the feckers will just cut to adverts - twats.

Call their bluff Branson - Sky has more to lose than you do!

W.

[with apologies if you've seen me rant on other forums!]

[flumperino]

I wonder if we will be able to negotiate a better deal with virgin as they will no longer be providing cornerstone channels in their tv package.

I just read their T&Cs and it states that you can cancel any agreement with them if they 'significantly' alter their services. This would definitely be classed as significant.

It'd be annoying to lose Sky One....but the possibility of a £10/£20 reduction a month sounds nice

[marcode]

wow..

this is gonna get really really messy, very very quickly lol

[doozeruk]

I think the package I'm on with cable I only got just to get sky one. I might as well just free channels now hehe.

[flumperino]

I just hope that Sky have recruited a load of additional installation engineers.

They are going to have an monumental influx of new customers.

[apllrd]

i think virgin are more smarter than sky in the long run, all the new shows in the states will be bought by virgin and they will get better deals with the the studios, sky will just try to appease threir shareholders in the short term but will be fcuked in the long run, as much as murdoch's millions reach. +k for virgin.

[B.I.G.]

Personally I only use sky one for the simpsons

i used to feel the same but now i've seen every episode about 50 times sky one might as well not be there.

i'll miss skysports news when a major sports story breaks but i'm sure i'll cope without it.

[CominAtcha]

i think virgin are more smarter than sky in the long run, all the new shows in the states will be bought by virgin and they will get better deals with the the studios, sky will just try to appease threir shareholders in the short term but will be fcuked in the long run, as much as murdoch's millions reach. +k for virgin.

Probaby wrong, but isn't Sky owned by the same guy who owns Fox....?

So I doubt Sky will have any probs getting major US TV shows...

[marcode]

yes 20th century is owned by fox entertainment, whos owned by news corp who are also owned by murdoch.

however, fox actually produce relatively few of the decent newish shows as far as im aware.. only prison break and 24 in the current schedule..

although they do have simpsons, family guy, futurama, king of the hill and american dad.

theyll need to stop cancelling decent shows if murdoch wants to be able to ship any of his shows to the uk.

[joey]

i reckon this is a good move for virgin. currently its 50 percent ( correct me if im wrong - a figure i have read) subscribers are through cable tv. losing cable is substantial to their advertising revenue though sky basic channels, and they lose the viewers to their competitors such as the bbc and other potential new virgin startup channels.

for me i like to see sky scream really thinking that it has a monopoly on the market

[the_wizzard]

its nice to see someone stand up to that twat murdoch i wont miss any of the channels that may be affected.

[Roty]

It's good to see Murdoch not getting his own way all the time, but I will miss s sports news.

[Mule]

Virgins response

Sky don't want you to see the whole picture

Hello,

Let's face it. Things would be pretty boring if choice didn't exist. There'd be just one kind of airline to fly with.

One type of car to drive. And if Sky had their way, there'd only be one place to get TV.

We thought we'd let you in on a few details of what's been going on.
While we've continued to make Virgin Media channels like Living available to all Sky customers, Sky may remove Sky One, Two, Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News from Virgin Media – in order to force you into switching service.
This does not affect Sky Sports or Sky Movies.
We were willing to pay an increase in costs in order to give you a full range of Sky channels.
However, Sky have consistently made unrealistic demands on the price they expect us to pay.
We have refused to accept these demands, since it means we'd have to pass the price increases on to you, which would be simply unfair. We are not prepared to rip off our customers.

So Sky have picked up their ball and gone home.

Luckily, we don't think Sky's the limit.

We think the future's full of fresh entertainment and communication possibilities. And we're looking forward to bringing them to you. With all the freedom and choice you deserve.

We've recently launched Virgin Central, a revolutionary type of TV channel, where programmes start and stop when you say so. It's absolutely free for all of our TV customers. Due to Sky's technology restraints, we can't offer this channel to their subscribers, even if they'd let us.

Our digital TV service also comes with a giant collection of over 500 films, and thousands of music videos and TV shows – all at your beck and call.

We're not scared of competition, we welcome it.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/fairplay/index.html

[Mule]

Sky's response

We just wanted to keep you updated, given what ***/Virgin have been saying today. First things first, as far as we’re concerned, negotiations are continuing, and we hope these will be completed successfully without anyone missing out on their favourite shows.

We want Sky One, Sky Two, Sky Sports News and the award-winning Sky News to remain available to ***/Virgin customers. We know that they are missing out on other Sky channels like Sky Three and Sky Arts, so we’ve been talking to ***/Virgin about these as well.

At Sky, we love great TV. We’ve increased the amount we spend on our channels by more than two thirds over the past few years. That’s why we can bring you great shows like the newest episodes of Lost, 24 and The Simpsons, as well as acclaimed original productions like Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather.

So we hope people will see through angry statements from ***/Virgin and encourage them to come back and agree a fair price for some of the finest shows on TV.

We believe in giving our customers more for less. When we launched our new broadband service last year, we discovered just how much people were being charged by cable and BT. So we offered Sky TV customers Sky Broadband with up to 16Mb download speeds and a wireless router for just £10 a month, vs £35 a month for an up to 10Mb service with ***/Virgin. Great television and big savings are why more than 8 million families are choosing to be with Sky. To find out more about how much you could save go to www.sky.com/save.

From the Sky Channels team

http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skyco...ntentid=646110

[marcode]

got to love branson..

hes been in the tv platform business for about 5 minutes and hes already started a fight..

he aint scared of a bit of competition.. good on him.

[beansontoast]

, as well as acclaimed original productions like Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather

If I was them I'd have kept quiet about that one

[wonkyfox]

i`ll still carry on getting my sky one programs from newsgroups...so i`m not bothered..knowing what Bransons like he`ll win in the end..good luck to him, cable was getting boring anyway.

[arvin]

loving branson taking no shit, might even switch to virgin if they are going to run the student offer again soon.