VM and Fox closures, what now?
 

With Fox UK closing on 30th June and talk that the Nat Geo channels will follow at the end of the year, what do we think VM will do, if anything?

Depending on your TV tier, customers would seemingly be losing between 3 and 7 channels and their associated on-demand content.

Will VM hope no-one complains and leave everything otherwise unchanged? Or maybe they will change the tiers lineup?

There's only one "major" channel they could add to compensate, but are VM willing to add Sky Atlantic in this scenario after being unwilling to pay what was being asked up to now?

An unlikely suggestion is VM make all the HD variations (currently in the top tier) available to lower tiers and those on the top tier get a bundled in Disney+ sub.

Each TV tier is basically a pot of money to split between the channels on that tier, there would be 7 channels less, so either the remaining channels get more money, VM pocket it, or VM find content to spend it on.

Also Baby TV is owned by Disney now, so surely that will close soon too, and then its content be exclusively available via Disney+.

Anyway, what does everyone think will happen? What would you like to happen?

Re: VM and Fox closures, what now?
 

VM will probably go crying to Ofcom as they tend to do (tongue in cheek here btw), SKY will hike prices.
SKY Atlantic isn't worth what was originally asked but there are talks ongoing between vm and SKY who nowadays have a much better relationship.
Also one must wonder how long until Discovery follow Disneys path and move everything exclusive to their streaming service?

Re: VM and Fox closures, what now?
 

Way things are going, VM & Sky will just be Freeview/Freesat + Sky channels. The streaming channels don't even have to contribute to the broadband infrastructure required to support their services.

Re: VM and Fox closures, what now?
 

Even though the direction of travel does appear to be going towards Discovery Plus, David Zaslav, in the wake of the WarnerMedia merger, specifically mentioned how it would create an ‘enhanced linear business’ which suggests they’re not walking away from what is still a fairly strong cash earner… I’m more minded to think any new deal will be similar to that with Sky which covers both pay tv carriage and carriage of digital products.

Re: VM and Fox closures, what now?
 

Great post Phunkenstein.

Re: VM and Fox closures, what now?
 

I rang Virgin as a 4 quid discount was due to end next month and when I said about closure of Fox the agent found a better discount of a tenner for 18 months. Separate from another discount which I have. By the way I was speaking to someone within 3 minutes of picking up the phone. Bah to the naysayers lol