Virgin Media to drop Sky One

Claire_DC

TaBunny wrote:

ClaireDC, so do you work for sky then???

I am a sky customer, but i don't work for them lol, i just saw it on the sky website and thought people may want to see it so they can see statements from both companies.

Claire_DC

thor wrote:

As I said before, this will be a huge own goal for Sky cause not only will they lose advertising & programming revenue but Virgin will start to bid up prices for shows that Sky have previously aquired with little oppostion(e.g. the disgraceful way Channel 4 sacrificed Lost to keep the tedious Desperate Housewives).
Sky have always maintained that they want Virgin to pay a fair price for thier content, well maybe now Sky will get their chance to so the same when Virgin enters the fray.

Channel 4 let Lost go because most people were downloading the episodes as they didn't want to be 6 months or so behind the US. People wanted to see the next series as soon as it was shown, hence lower viewing figures for channel 4 as most people were watching future episodes already from downloading them.

It's a matter of opinion as to if you like desperate housewives, i personally love it.. but i also love lost too. You can't say it's disgraceful, it's what they have done and not everyone will be happy about it, but you can't please everybody all the time.

SatelliteTVTalk

Regarding the loss of channels... It looks like any 11th hour compromise is highly unlikely. Branson has spoken, ‘…we’ve got to make a stand…’ In an interview with Andrew Neil that will be shown on BBC News 24 over the weekend, Branson has stated that Virgin Media will be setting up channels to rival Sky One. Read the whole transcript here…

TaBunny

well thanks Satellitetvtalk looks like it's all over ay cheers for letting us know

rsemp

i know you all love ntl but i can say as a sky customer that i enjoy the services and my package with sky was cheaper then the package i had with ntl/telewest/virgin/whatever they call it. And talking about sneaky buisness moves, think about the increase in the prices of the tv packages on virging media , sure it looks like 10p more to pay for you, but for branson it = ££££££££££

thor

Gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Claire_DC

Yep, my mum said hers went off at 00:10am and has been immediately replaced with.... hallmark channel lol.

She's getting on the phone to them tomorrow as sky one is the only channel she watches aside from channels 1-5.

mistyarthur

VM has admitted some customers will be able to get out of their contracts so I wouldn't worry too much about that. The first I realised it had actually gone was when they messed up the channel layout, BBC news is 601 now not 610!!! That confused me for a bit. lol. The only thing thats changes though.
I've only watched sky1 a few times in the past year so not a biggy for me but 119 is new I'm sure, was that sky1? It's on demand and has little britain, the office, alias and a few other series of things for free viewing.

lsm1066

Well, not that I have much of a choice really, since we're about to move to an area that doesn't have cable. But that just means that I'll be saving money, which is a good thing. I worked it out when we knew we were moving. I currently pay £58 for everything except Sky Sports on Virgin Media. If I had every Sky package available, including HD and Sky Plus, it would cost me less. Not much, but less. So if I leave out Sky Sports, which we don't have anyway, I'd get the money for the installation back in two years.

Here's the thing. I'm an NTL customer. I never got their broadband package but did have their phone service. I switched back to BT because their customer services department was appalling. I think the shortest time I ever spent on the phone tryint to sort out their cockups was 40 minutes. The first I knew I was a Virgin Media customer was when they cut me off for not paying a bill I hadn't received. So I phoned the usual 0800 number, only to get a message that this number is no longer in use and that I had to call an 0845 number instead. I can't use 150 because I don't have their phone package.

I got through to technical support relatively quickly (I was only on hold for 10 minutes) because there was a fault message on my screen. When they cut it off once before, it said I was not subscribed to the channels. This time, my cable had apparently become detached (just so you know if you ever get cut off by Virgin). They put me through to credit control, where I remained stubbonly on hold for 2 hours before I was cut off because it was 8pm and the department was closed.

So I tried again the next day and was kept on hold for a further 3 hours before finally getting through. In the end I got through to a really nice chap who sorted it all out and deducted the £10 late payment charge "to make up for the inconvenience". Ok, except I'm a reflexologist and charge £30 per hour for treatments. So I actually lost a potential £150. Ho hum.

And now they've removed the two channels I watch more than any others, Sky One and Sky Two. Sky One has become Virgin Central 2 and Sky Two is now called OldSky2 and has a message on it that Sky have removed the Channel but for great entertainment, go to Living on channel 110. Marvellous. Except that at 5am, when I usually watch Voyager, that's the shopping channel. Not exactly equivalent and certainly not something I want my kids to be watching.

According to the news yesterday (and for the past week), the cost of the increase that Virgin are being asked for is 3p per customer. That represents 0.005% of my current bill. I'm sure I could stand it. But with Sky One and Sky Two being the only channels I watch (and am addicted to, let's own up here), that aren't available on Freeview, I might as well jack Virgin Media in.

Dear Mr Branson,
It gives me great pleasure.

rubiales

Yep! Sky channels gone as threatened - OH, DS & DD gutted as Sky Sports News is their lifeline!!! (As for me - I will live without the Simpsons, Lost etc.) But isn't it about time someone stopped Murdoch having it all his own way? At least Branson has some ethics!!