Sky marketing blitz against Virgin Media -- phase one

[Kevin.Beaumont]

Phase one is nationwide billboard posters, rolling out from tomorrow. They're betting the farm on this from what I understand, by which I mean they are investing a serious amount of money in advertising as they are gambling the channels won't return to Virgin now, so want as many customers as possible.

[concepttwenty20]

posters look good

[Nikesh]

I have to say the posters do look quite good but I hope they don't work...

[themelon]

Ummmmmmmm and Sky wernt really planning this one were they??

As Virgin have said all along Sky are abusing their monopoly position, they have put forward unrealistic offers knowing full well they would be rejected by Virgin, in a pathetic attempt to gain more subscribers. I really hope they fail.

Sky must be split up by OFCOM into content and platform as they are quite blatently abusing their position, having supposedly 'great shows' to try and attract a few gulible people to their shoddy bin lid platform. Smells like a monopolistic oath to me.

[Paul M]

Funny how "all" these great shows always boils down to Lost, 24 and the Simpsons ..... 1.5% of a weeks possible viewing.

[Matt D]

And all three are past their prime...

Still, there's always BSG & Stargate.

[Nikesh]

At least Sky aren't calling Virgin Media, ntl/Virgin anymore lol

[SydneyHopper]

Why would Sky be interested in attracting
customers that have defected from a service
that has omitted one free-to-air service? Does
that not shout ‘whimsey’ and ‘contrary’? They
will never be able to peg the contrary’ans
down as loyal customers, nor will they
be considered upper range spenders.

In fact, Virgin may well welcome this
opportunity to dump the bottom
feeders, in order to create a
more compelling service
for the other types

And Sky’s business model
may start to look a little
sluggish, if it suddenly
has to support a
whole host of small paying customers.

I would go as far as to say that each
newly acquired customer, will only be
worth a quarter value to Sky, compared
to its regular customers

[Chrysalis]

sorry but virgins advertising is much better.

Virgin concentrating on heavy downloading and ability to use VOD etc. Sky talking about 2 shows that a lot of people wouldnt miss.

[AndyCambs]

Of course, the first ad is a little disappointing really, since Virgin will have Lost:

We're planning to add all 3 series of Lost to our revolutionary on demand service. Series 1 and 2 will be available soon and series 3 is coming your way later this year. What's more, since they're all available on demand, they'll be ready for you to watch anytime you like. Watch one, watch them all, back to back – without the ads.

[andygrif]

Which you'll have to pay extra for if you're not on the XL package.

[themelon]

But we would have add to pay extra if they had renewed Sky carriage anyway. To meet Skys ridiculous demands, subs will have risen £2 or so per month. I much rather the style of On Demand........if you want to pay for crap you can but you are not forced to.

I expect Sky Subscribers will see an inrease to cover the shortfall, and Sky will probably push up Premium channels to try and claw a bit back.

[AndyCambs]

Originally Posted by andygrif

Which you'll have to pay extra for if you're not on the XL package.

I'm assuming it's going to be added to Virgin Central which is free to all users - isn't it?

[Stuart C]

Originally Posted by Matt D

And all three are past their prime...

Still, there's always BSG & Stargate.

You forget: Sky One is a channel that carries so little new stuff that they proudly display "new episode" in the top left hand corner when something is.

[Carl J]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

sorry but virgins advertising is much better.

Virgin concentrating on heavy downloading

Which makes the trialling of usage based throttling and the reports of congestion all the more amusing to be honest.