[Alien]

Originally Posted by info4u

1) Alien I see your more against the service than pro the service
This may be because you was a NTL customer (Just a guess might be wrong) but NTL had a poorer reputation to Telewest and it was both forces that joined up and a lot of reshaping has gone thought to make a better company

I was an NTL customer, but I don't see what that has to do with anything, I've never really had a problem with NTL/VM's service... until now.

The reason I'm more against the service than for it is because I had something that I wanted, & now instead I have something that is [at the present & in the foreseeable future] no use to me, & it feels like I'm expected to say "oh, joy! how wonderful this is!".

Originally Posted by info4u

A lot of negativity is coming from reading your posts.

I just had the channel I watched the most cut off without warning, of course I'm negative!

Originally Posted by info4u

2) The Merge with NTL and Telewest was going on since Oct-Nov 2004 and it was only properly announce summer 2005, it was during this period the merge to Virgin Mobile was agreed and as you can see things dont change overnight
The new brand only started on the 8th Feb
Give it time, New systems internally needs to be changed

They could have done what I've described below without much change at all.

Originally Posted by info4u

(to which I hear they will be introducing a system that records ALL calls not just the odd one when the person is due for training, which will help cut down agents with poor attitutes)

As I've said, I haven't really had a problem with NTL/VM before now.

Originally Posted by info4u

3) alternative arrangements
I agree you shouldnt have to, but dont you think VM think that too. It works in the favour of the company to help its customers than to ignore them

It might have also helped to generate some good will if they'd actually let us know what was going to happen. As I understand it, the STBs are set up such that they can give out messages to the customers from the cable supplier. They could have let us know, but didn't.

The only thing I saw in any way about it was an advert by Sky, saying that we might lose some channels, but they didn't say which ones, so I thought they might be some premium channels or something.

Originally Posted by info4u

However somethings are beyond their control and they cant just screen it dispite Sky's authorisation since copyright laws exist and contracts
and as for the poll sugestion on obtaining customers permission

1) Sending out paper forms to send back (Administration collected)
2) TV polls (Web edited and collected)
3) Website polls (Web edited and collected)
4) Call tree recordings and polls (Software based and collected)

What's the point in having an interactive cable TV network if they don't make use of the interactive side of it? The simplest thing they could have done, even if they didn't give out notice, would be to simply convert it to a "premium" channel, along with a note to explain, similar to the 1 that's on the former Sky2. That way a customer could read what had happened, & decide whether or not they wanted to spend the oh-so-terrible £1/month, & then just enter their pin number if they decided they wanted it.

Originally Posted by info4u

Too time consuming and therefore costly to the company and would it make a difference to what Sky really are trying to do?
If you do pay more this time then next time it comes to renew they will highten their prices more, if they are willing to pay 3 times the price why not 9 times next time the renewal comes of their contract?

It might not have made a difference to what Sky wanted to do, but it would have given us an extra year [or however long the contract is] with the channel we want, & in which time VM would have plenty of time to organise a proper alternative.

Originally Posted by info4u

Its happened before where sky have done this and the channels have come back on and dare say the same to NTL

I hope you're right.

Originally Posted by Matt D

Don't forget "Ross Kemp on Gangs"

LOL, yeah. As I said, it was just a sample, those were just the ones I spotted when flicking through the next week in DigiGuide.

If I was to include older stuff...
The Villa
Flying High [I think that's what it was called - something about the cabin crew of an airliner or whatever]
shows about holiday club reps - there was a fictional 1, & some "real life documentaries", IIRC.