Cable Forum - View Single Post

steveh · 22-01-2016, 10:05

Someone I know who works for a big TV company was trying to pitch me the idea that Virgin Media is an acquisition target for Sky, perhaps as part of the expected Sky / Fox deal.

At a time when BT are expanding into TV and satellite is on a slow decline it would enable Sky to reduce their dependency on BT infrastructure. The city would like it as it would immediately add 4 million more direct customers and Sky is felt to be better at monetising them than Liberty Global has been. Competition authorities are less of an issue now having already allowed through the BT / EE deal, there's the growth of competition from streaming services and also the cosy relationship between Murdoch and the Tories, though the broadband market is a more significant problem, especially as TalkTalk seem unlikely to survive.

Sky also have leverage over Virgin that come the end of the TV contract in 2017 they won't really need them any more if they can sell customers Now TV direct instead, which would make Virgin's TV offering unviable. John Malone and Rupert Murdoch have been on better terms the past few years which would make a deal easier and it's been reported in the press that Malone's not that attached to keeping Virgin as part of LG if someone comes along with a decent offer. If he can push up short term profitability and get Sky into a bidding war with Vodafone for it then even better.

22-01-2016, 10:05	#2474
steveh Inactive Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 272	Re: Netflix/Streaming Services Someone I know who works for a big TV company was trying to pitch me the idea that Virgin Media is an acquisition target for Sky, perhaps as part of the expected Sky / Fox deal. At a time when BT are expanding into TV and satellite is on a slow decline it would enable Sky to reduce their dependency on BT infrastructure. The city would like it as it would immediately add 4 million more direct customers and Sky is felt to be better at monetising them than Liberty Global has been. Competition authorities are less of an issue now having already allowed through the BT / EE deal, there's the growth of competition from streaming services and also the cosy relationship between Murdoch and the Tories, though the broadband market is a more significant problem, especially as TalkTalk seem unlikely to survive. Sky also have leverage over Virgin that come the end of the TV contract in 2017 they won't really need them any more if they can sell customers Now TV direct instead, which would make Virgin's TV offering unviable. John Malone and Rupert Murdoch have been on better terms the past few years which would make a deal easier and it's been reported in the press that Malone's not that attached to keeping Virgin as part of LG if someone comes along with a decent offer. If he can push up short term profitability and get Sky into a bidding war with Vodafone for it then even better.