Virgin Media News

[TV Boy]

The sale of Virgin Media may be postponed because recent financial market conditions mean that potential private equity buyers are questioning whether offers for such a large target can be financed.

The cable giant had requested bids to be submitted by 8 August but it is now expected to name a new deadline next week.

However, according to reports the delay should not prove too much of a problem for Virgin because the sale process is at such an early stage.

For full story: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broadc...StoryID=170437
Info from Broadcast.

[grabbi]

I think they've delayed it because potential suiters are pulling out.

It hasn't attracted as much attention as they'd hoped, so its delayed.

[TV Boy]

Virgin Media have lost 60,000 viewers in the last THREE months.

-They lost 40,000 viewers from they Virgin Media TV Network.

-They lost 20,000 viewers from they Phone and internet.
Info from the Mail on Sunday.

[daveetwo]

Originally Posted by TV Boy

The sale of Virgin Media may be postponed because recent financial market conditions mean that potential private equity buyers are questioning whether offers for such a large target can be financed.

Its not just the PE companies but the banks that provide the finance. According to reports the main bank players have holding back because they havent been able to sell on the huge finance they provided for some recent deals such as the boots one.
Its leaving the banks with a lot more risk than they are used to.
Does this all sound a bit like the dot com boom when banks were throwing money around like there was no tomorrow without any real substance to it and then it all went sick. (well most of it)

Ive been thinking for a couple of weeks now that the virgin deal might not happen, at least not yet.

[m.massey]

there may all come back now , now that sky have gone up and we have got satanta sports on xl for free on virgin media

[grabbi]

According to the Observer/Guardian, John Malone has reiterated his interest in Virgin Media, which, I must admit does sound promising.

It states that Murdoch and Malone used to work together (!) and Murdoch sold his DirecTV Satellite group to Malone, only for Malone to sell it at a bigger price.

He also owns 17 Countries Cable groups, and Virgin media could be the pinnacle of that, if he were to buy it.

Malone and Murdoch have a decent enough relationship to see a healthy competitiveness in the TV Market, but not a RIVAL Competitiveness like we have seen in the past 8 Months.

The thing I like about this guy is his willingness to move his family to a State that has really poor TV Signals, dug up the roads and installed Cable to people so they could watch Multi-Channel TV.

It says "against all the doubters, he did it, and proved them wrong!"

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/busin...141703,00.html

[Neptune]

Originally Posted by grabbi

Malone and Murdoch have a decent enough relationship to see a healthy competitiveness in the TV Market, but not a RIVAL Competitiveness like we have seen in the past 8 Months.

Thanks for the link.

If Malone gets vm, it will not be anything except a "rival competitiveness" with Murdoch...He did try to wrestle News Corp out of Murdoch's grasp. Hardly friendly...

I wrote up my own cv about about Malone the other day on DS. Albeit it's loaded with my own personal opinion, but have a look, it's in this thread at post 19: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=630503

[grabbi]

Well, if you are Horizon, which you are, that is a very informative read.

He looks ruthless!

So what would your spin on it be then? That the relationship between Malone and Murdoch did go sour, or that, somehow, VM could become affiliated with Sky with the EPG providers and so forth, or would Sky "technically" be paying VM's Heads for content and operations of their own company?

Whichever happens, you did some mighty fine research there.

[Neptune]

...I didn't actually, but thanks anyway That was all from memory. If I had done my research before posting, I would've altered a couple of things especially the bit about Malone owning a stake of Discovery Networks. He owns the whole lot, not just a stake.

Re Malone's relationship with Murdoch, as far as I know there isn't one. They are powerful businessmen competing against each other in the same industries. I can't imagine though, that Murdoch is overkeen on him as Malone did try and make a grab for News Corp.

Sorry, but I didn't understand the bulk of what you saying about Sky and vm affiliating with each other and paying for content in their own company.

Sky and vm are competitors and will never affiliate with each other on any level and competition law ensures it stays like that. My titbit was thrown in for others to speculate, but potentially vm and sky might use the same software platform that their epgs are written on. Whether Murdoch would want to pay fees to Malone for the use of the software is debatable.

What would be interesting is that if Malone did buy vm, Malone would control a huge bulk of channels on both Sky and vm. Whether this would cause additional arguments between Sky and vm, or whether peace and love would break out, is something I would follow eagerly.

It is by no means certain that Malone would buy vm as many others are interested. What you can be assured of is that things would be interesting, for customers too... Malone has been known to raise prices 2 or 3 times in a year, if he feels like it...

Don't forget Malone is not new to the uk cable industry. He was the majority shareholder in the company that become Telewest and look what happened to that.... it went bust. Perhaps second time lucky.

[grabbi]

Originally Posted by Neptune

Sky and vm are competitors and will never affiliate with each other on any level and competition law ensures it stays like that. My titbit was thrown in for others to speculate, but potentially vm and sky might use the same software platform that their epgs are written on. Whether Murdoch would want to pay fees to Malone for the use of the software is debatable.

What would be interesting is that if Malone did buy vm, Malone would control a huge bulk of channels on both Sky and vm. Whether this would cause additional arguments or whether peace and love would break out between them is something I would eagerly follow.

This is basically what I meant.

OpenTV would then supply VM with the EPG, and OpenTV already supply Sky with theirs, but it would annoy Murdoch that VM are now using that also, and probably get a discount for being an affiliated company (plus it would probably improve the V+ EPG we currently have).


And your right about him owning a fair few channels on Sky and VM too, which would be seen as to level up the "playing field" a little more.

The dominance suit which has been ongoing would, really, be out of the window then, wouldnt it, because you would have two competitors with ruthlessness and the cash to back it up, aiming to supply the number one content in Britain.

If he does raise prices, I cant see the problem. Sky will do the same, and that just goes to show how inflations affect our market today.

Unless everyone stops watching TV, were not going to see a price drop. Just like with housing. Unless everyone stops buying, House prices will continue to increase.

Its only a matter of time before Digital TV is a Middle and Upper Class luxury again, with the rate things are happening.

Im on VIP, paying £8p/m ontop of call charges, and I wouldnt pay anymore. Thats the very limit I am willing. and I only went on this pack because I was spending that before! lol

[Neptune]

....I certainly wouldn't be happy about multiple price rises, but to each his own I guess!

Re the epgs and as another poster said on DS (which i knew) Open tv is merely the platform that the epg is written on. Both Sky and vm would still write their own epgs and this has nothing to do with the platform it's written on.

Re your digital tv will be a middle and upper class thing only in the future due to price rises, that's a interesting point and may well become the case.

My real interest in whether Malone or someone like Time Warner buy vm, is not on standard services but on premium services: films and sports. Malone has numerous interests already and if he were to buy vm, the Hollywood studios might consider breaking up the monopoly that Sky enjoys on film rights. If Malone could make certain guarantees. And as for sports, it looks likely that vm and setanta will join up in the future. So, when it comes to bidding for the football rights again, Malone could put in a huge bid which if won would finally break Sky's monopoly in this area too. It aint quite broke yet as Setanta currently have too few matches in comparision to Sky.

[12noon]

Originally Posted by m.massey

there may all come back now , now that sky have gone up and we have got satanta sports on xl for free on virgin media

I don't think people will jump back on board as fast as they left, but the Satanta deal will stop the flow and might bring some back.

I know i used to like watching the odd program on Sky One, but i think I'd take the free Satanta sports deal over the Sky deal any day.

New Simpsons plus the odd few other programs i used to watch V Live football, live NRL rugby league and the odd other sporting event i might watch.

[JG3870]

The launch of Setanta Sports News has been delayed.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcas...143268,00.html

A question mark hangs over the launch of the Setanta Sports News service, designed to rival Sky Sports News, after a key production partner, TWI, the sports-content production arm of IMG Media, pulled out of the project.
A barrage of costly advertising by Virgin Media, the platform for the new Setanta service, promised: "Very soon you'll be able to keep track of the whole world of football with our exclusive new channel, Setanta Sports News." But just how soon?

The service, planned to take on the exhaustive rolling tickertape and breaking news coverage of Sky Sports News, was planned to launch on September 29 but that has now been ruled out.

[REDLAND]

Originally Posted by JG3870

The launch of Setanta Sports News has been delayed.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcas...143268,00.html

A question mark hangs over the launch of the Setanta Sports News service, designed to rival Sky Sports News, after a key production partner, TWI, the sports-content production arm of IMG Media, pulled out of the project.
A barrage of costly advertising by Virgin Media, the platform for the new Setanta service, promised: "Very soon you'll be able to keep track of the whole world of football with our exclusive new channel, Setanta Sports News." But just how soon?

The service, planned to take on the exhaustive rolling tickertape and breaking news coverage of Sky Sports News, was planned to launch on September 29 but that has now been ruled out.

As long as its here before I lose SSnews on freeview I won't care

[DC_FC79]

Why dont virgin setup theyre own sports news channel