....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.