Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

Not strictly VM news so feel free to move it.

Talk-Talk have announced today that they have increased their 'budget' (presumerably You-View) subscribers in the last quarter by 160,000.

With traditional pay-tv new subscriber levels plateauing, is it time for the big players to be worried? Maybe we have now passed the glory days and boom times for pay-tv.

I can honestly see You-View and FreeSat now making serious inroads to VM and Skys subscriber base in years to come.

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

I'd like to think that they shouldn't be worried as Talk-Talk are an awful company from the customer side, but they are growing at an astronomical rate. Their reputation doesn't seem to stop people taking up their services.

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

Not at all as i would sooner have VM - Sky - Bt in that order than the crap that is talk talk

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

VM and Sky won't be worried these two are significantly bigger companies than Talk Talk.

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

the fact that they are growing so quickly would put me off - history says they always sell far more than the infrastructure can cope with - and then play catchup

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

I'm confused - Are you talking about TT or VM here? :)

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

Medium term VM could be in trouble as BT rolls out Fibre to the rest of the country, they will then be competing for good quality broadband and Sky will have most of the content for TV.

Both companies cash rich and Virgin still carrying all that debt.

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

Talk Talk's success on the TV side is because they offer something completely different to that of Sky and VM both of which are at the premium end of the pay TV market , Talk Talk have elected to offer a free Youview box for its broadband subscribers with the likes of Sky One , Sky Living and Sky Arts available for as little as £5 a month appealing to many current Freeview users.

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

I think it's a good business model. I don't however see Talk Talk as a threat to any of the "big guns"

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

Not in a million years.

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

Well I doubt Liberty Global will let that happen, you have remember they are a very rich company and I can see the debt decreasing as times goes on.

Re: Should VM and Sky be worried?
 

Liberty Global are carrying huge amounts of debt.

The press speculation was that the Virgin deal became viable for them because Virgin had recently become profitable [aside from debt repayments] and they were looking at it as a cash cow (much in the same way that Media Corp want to control all of Sky for a similar reason) to help them pay down their overall debt. (At least that was my reading of the reports)