Virgin Media News

[mentalis]

Does that mean that Sky will buy the Virgin channels then deny access to those channels as well...

[grabbi]

No way they will get them for £600m, when they are worth £800m.

I think Id refuse to sell to Sky, also, just to fuel the fire.

They have screwed Virgin over, so why dont Virgin lure them in with an offer, but reject it (no doubt another company would buy them for the "real" price.)

[Toto]

With the current court case, BERR investigation, I can't see any way that the Observer article is correct, it lacks any factual statements and quotes a "city source".

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by TV Boy

Murdoch slams BBC for stifling competition

News Corporation's Europe and Asia CEO James Murdoch has hit out at the BBC for "crowding out" and "squashing" competitors

The words pot, kettle and black come to mind

[TV Boy]

UK terrestrial Channel 4 has secured headline sponsorship for the ninth season of über reality show Big Brother, with telecoms company Virgin Mobile returning to back the series.

Virgin Mobile signed up to sponsored the show's eighth season last year and also sponsored Big Brother Celebrity Hijack this year. It took over the headline sponsor slot after The Carphone Warehouse dropped out in March last year, following the infamous Celebrity Big Brother racism row.

http://www.c21media.net/resources/de...&article=41617

Info from C21.

[DarthYoda]

The Link doesn't work

[TV Boy]

Sorry about that.

http://www.c21media.net/resources/de...&article=41617

---------- Post added at 12:00 ---------- Previous post was at 11:56 ----------

Also:

UK cable firm Virgin Media added 36,800 net cable TV subscribers in the first quarter of 2008, marginally up from the same period in 2007. Churn fell and the company boasted record triple-play penetration.

Virgin admitted that the cable TV additions were lower than expected, particularly given the previous quarter's Christmas-inflated figure of 61,100, but said this was "partly due to alterations to acquisition offers in order to emphasise higher-priced TV tiers."

Churn, the level of subscriber disconnections, fell to 1.2% (compared with 1.6% in Q1 2007), which Virgin said was the lowest level since 2004. That record triple-play penetration figure stood at 51.3%, compared with 42.9% in the same quarter last year.

Virgin's new VoD services now numbers 1.6 million users on a monthly basis, representing a reach of 48%. Average views per user per month in the quarter were 24 compared to 23 in the previous quarter and 11 a year ago.

In total, average monthly views were 36 million in the quarter, up 10% on the previous quarter and up 155% on the same quarter last year, Virgin said.

http://www.c21media.net/news/detail....&article=41645

Virgin1 lines up rude awakening

UK cable network Virgin Media Television's entertainment channel Virgin1 has unveiled three "provocative" one-off factual commissions for The Rude Season, a summer line-up of primetime programming.

Shock doc My Free Boobs (1x60', working title), produced by Amaze TV, explores "the rising internet phenomenon" of social networking sites that offer women the opportunity to raise funds for breast implants by attracting male benefactors willing to pay for them.

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday Viagra (1x60'), also produced by Amaze TV, will mark 10 years since the UK's National Health Service approved the titular drug for use as a treatment for male impotence.

The new season also includes The Sex Lives of Twins (1x60'), produced by Endemol-owned Cheetah Television, which will take an "in-depth" look at "compelling and real stories," including the "growing trend" of identical twins who date the same person.

Virgin1 acting director of programmes Daniela Neumann said: "Virgin1's upcoming season embodies the very essence of original content that we're undertaking this year. Smart, informative and enquiring, these shows will push boundaries and really get people talking. These programmes are fundamentally intelligent docs on sex and sex lives today."

My Free Boobs, commissioned by Virgin1's senior commissioning editor Lucy Pilkington, and Happy Birthday Viagra, commissioned by Virgin1's senior commissioning editor Rebecca Johnson, are both being exec produced by Amaze TV's Sham Sandhu.

The Sex Lives of Twins, also commissioned by Pilkington, will be exec produced by Cheetah's Catherine Welton.

All the info is from C21 Media.

[braysoj1]

Virgin 1 lines up Rude Season
Virgin 1 has commissioned three original documentaries for a Rude Season.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a9551...de-season.html

[moroboshi]

Virgin are really aiming for the classy end of the market there. Just as well Nuts TV isn't on cable or it would have some real competition. Now they just need an ultra right wing tabloid 'news' channel to call their own and make up for the missing Murdoch mouth piece that is Sky News.

[frogstamper]

Originally Posted by moroboshi

Virgin are really aiming for the classy end of the market there. Just as well Nuts TV isn't on cable or it would have some real competition. Now they just need an ultra right wing tabloid 'news' channel to call their own and make up for the missing Murdoch mouth piece that is Sky News.

They could offer that fair minded chap Rush Limbaugh his own show, with Richard Littlejohn as a deputy and guest appearance's from Gary Bushell all under the watchful eye of Melanie Phillips. Just imagine the impartiality of this lot...

[m419]

I really like how the cable companies have refined the TV channels, I mean Sky has so much crap! They are far too many news channels. News News News News and more News!!!!!

Its enough to turn someone crazy!

I mean there is:

Sky news
BBC news
Fox News
NBC News
CNN
Euronews
BBC Parliament

And loads more

And there also way to many shopping channels.

A clever way of Virgin Media getting more control over Sky is if Virgin acquires ITV shares as they planned as well as acquiring Discovery Europe. That way they can control which channels Sky has, Virgin could end all contracts it has with Sky and all the channels could be terminated on Sky and there wouldnt be a worth paying Sky a subscription. Then customers would turn to Virgin Media instead. It would probably take Sky customers a month before they get fed up of Sky.

[grabbi]

I think thats what many were hoping for when they originally put their name forward for ITV, albeit to help the relationship with Sky, not to make it worse.

Now, if Virgin took the shares, which is very risky, given that ITV just lost Sky £400m, they could, in essence "Blackmail" Sky for CERTAIN things, whereas actual distribution of the channel remains in place because its a Publicly Advertised Company or something like that... Basically, ITV HAS to go to Sky customers, just like Sky Sports has to come to us (even if it is for a fixed price.)

[m419]

Thats so right!

However, Virgin Media and its customers don't have to have Sky sports, they could use in-house services such as Setanta ect...

Only reason why Virgin Media kept Sky sports is because there is a medium sized demand for it. Same with Sky movies,however, if Virgin introduced movie channels offering on demand features too for half the price of Sky Movies, then there would be no need for Sky Movies.

However, since Sky1 and Sky news has lost around 4Million potential viewers or 5 million if you include Freeview and Topuptv, advertisers will soon find that its no longer worth advertising on such channels and revenue will drop. Furthermore, the other Sky channels show far too many repeats too such as Sky Real Lives, its shows repeats from ITV's schedule from 2001, and even worse, they have been aired on ITV2 several times too!

But if a viewer survey was to go out to all digital viewers on all networks incl Sky,Tiscali,Wight cable,Smallworld and Freeview, I wonder which channels would be most popular? Virgin's or Sky's.

With Virgin's channels,there is a lot to look forward too:

Greys Anatomy
Most Haunted
Maury
Jerry Springer
Steve Wilko's
Americas Next top model
Britains Next top model
So you think you can dance
6th sense colin fry
The Fix
The Riches
Terminator
Street Crime
Desmonds
Queer eye for the straight guy
Startrek

And many many more

And Sky...........

Lost
Simpsons which you can get on Channel 4
Filth Files
Airline From ITV 2001

And a few more worthless things.

[Derek S]

And the award for most blinkered view of Sky vs VM 2008 goes to....

You forgot to mention on Sky (off the top of my head)

Battlestar Galactica, Bones, Gladiators, Road Wars, Ross Kemp plays a hardman, Colour of Magic and a bunch of others.

Personally I find Virgins lineup to be mostly guff with the occasional gem whereas Skys is still mostly guff but with slightly more gems.

[sherer]

I don't think VM could offer a movie channel that would be as good as Sky Movies due to the fact that alot of films are produced by 20th Century Fox and the same with alot of the must see shows which are by Fox and so go straight to Sky first.

VM could offer a HBO TV as a linear channel for the VOD offering similar to Virgin Central. Yes it would just be the VOD stuff but alot of viewers aren't even aware what VOD is and as far as they are concerned if it isn't listed in the paper it isn't on TV