[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Virgin Mary

I can be OTT sometimes

The solution to the Sky One problem was simple:

Put the "hor air" Branson on every TV program (including Richard and Judy) to say that Murdoch wants to squeeze an extra 50p per customer per month for his SKY One.

And then let the VM customers decide:

Keep Sky one and pay 50p extra, or get rid of Sky one and pay 50 less.

Simple and Clean. Now, VM has created so many unhappy customers for no reason. Old stupid NTL, it will never change.

You are forgetting the 40m minimum payment that the contract stipulates.

---------- Post added at 12:45 ---------- Previous post was at 12:37 ----------

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Virgin could get into satellite relatively easily anyway. Sky don't own the satellite, they just rent transponders on it. Anyone (with enough cash and an uplink facility) can approach SES (who do own Astra).

But to get on the Sky channel lineup on the box is another matter.

---------- Post added at 12:49 ---------- Previous post was at 12:45 ----------

Originally Posted by GuestUK

To me, there seems to be something odd in the way the flextech and sky deals were done. From an interesting interview in the guadian with Murdoch

Edit: Also of interest - seems Sky offered Virgin the ability to retail their channels themselves with full control and profits, although Virgin turned it down

It seems odd that they would put themselves in such a position, as well as taking the cuts that they did, unless there was something happening in the bigger picture - or perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

It is all positioning, neither would want to be back in the position where you paid an extra fee a month for their channels, with TV channels it is all about picking up the pennies from the bundle.
3m pennies adds up to a lot more than,
well looking at the math VM have 3.5 m customers paying blah blah making sky want 40m
Now realistically only about 85% of them apparently watch Sky 1 and Sky SN. So to recoup 40m from them would mean they need to pay
3.5m * 15% = 525,000 customers
40m/525,000 = 77 per subscription per year or 6 a month. How many of that 525k would pay 6 a month for Sky One and SSN and consider it Value for Money?