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Originally Posted by info4u
I have made a lengthy post on here which does go in depth as to why we shouldnt be too concerned about the channel loss.
Yes I enjoyed watching the simpsons and futurama and just started to watch bones occasionally
But, there is loads of other stuff like Paramount Comedy etc to go by
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There are other channels, but everyone is different and has different tastes of what they would like to watch. As a science fiction, in particular Star Trek and Stargate fan, Sky One was pretty much the exclusive broadcaster of these series on any regular basis, as well as having new episodes, there isn't really any replacement for that. Virgin substitutded Hallmark for Sky One, but it's no substitute for me, unfortunately.
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To read the post I made go to SKY CHANNELS
Why pay out extra £10 a year for these channels (Sky News, Sky Sports, Sky Travel) when you can view them online for nothing and are also available on freeview, the only true channel you would be paying for is Sky 1
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Apparently Sky News and Sky Sports News are not going to be on Freeview much longer, depending on Sky's plans to move to premium content on DTT instead. Furthermore, the non-official video streams if I recall correctly are put up by third parties and could easily disappear, go wrong, be shut down and the legality is questioned.
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TELEVISION.BG is neither affiliated with the broadcasted channels nor responsible for their content. "
Again, there is questionable legality here. These are broadcasts made by people with the channels streaming them to the internet, and as I mentioned above, they could disappear, be shut down, break and again there are the legal issues. They may be up for now, but like TVU viewers (another streaming television system) found, the channels can easily disappear and not return when the person broadcasting them stops or has problems.
Some people have no problems downloading or viewing content from the internet for free and think it is fine despite the moral or legal implicaitons, however, not everyone takes such a view. Some people would like to legally view the channels they would like, from their television, reliably.
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Plenty of alternative choices.
Lost, Nic Tuk, Battlestar Galactica, Bones, 24 etc etc will more than likely come in time to Virgin Media once legal contracts to broadcast them on demand have been drafted up with the producers of these programmes, since it will be more than likely on demand it can affect DVD and VHS sales.
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This is fine for the popular series perhaps, but what about the less popular things that the channels showed? It seems to be Virgin's stance that there were only a couple of things worthwhile on Sky One, so if they put them on On Demand, everyone will be happy - I beg to differ. Part of what I liked about Sky One was that it was varied and broad and had a lot of programming, not just the most popular series.
There's also the fact that this is going to be after everyone else (who has Sky) has watched the episodes. Watching them when they are repeated months later is quite different. All the discussions between episodes have finished, you get it spoiled for you because other people have seen it, you're basically watching it after it's gone "stale" to an extent. I can't speak for other people, but I quite love the discussions after each live episode, talking to others about it, speculating what will happen next and such, and this isn't really possible here. Plus the fact by the time it hits on demand may be when it's on DVD already, and as I don't have digital myself, I have gathered you are not able to record on demand content, so you can watch it then it's gone, wheras if you get the DVDs you keep it forever. If each episode costs, which I imagine it will (or have unskippable adverts - there has to be some revenue to compensate the series costs, which loses part of the advantage of VOD anyway) then it may be better value just to get the DVDs anyway. Meanwhile, the next new series has probably started on Sky and they would be missing it again.
Not to mention the fact that if people are concerned about having to pay more for Sky, what about having to pay more for all the new VOD content Virgin are going to be trying to purchase - to offer anything like what Sky One offered is going to be very expensive and no doubt the costs will be pushed on to customers to fund the new expenditures. And if Virgin wants to compete with Sky, which it seems is their stance at the moment, it's going to be very costly. Not to mention unlikely they'll get any exclusivity deals due to the fact that the audience with Virgin is significantly smaller, (and those that can receive VOD moreso).
To conclude, for the people that actually liked the Sky Channels, there isn't much compensation or reason to stay. Perhaps for the occasional viewer, but not for people that liked the choice to watch what they wanted, including Sky programmes. Not to mention legally questionable low quality internet streams or downloads to get the content the customers want, the content provider is providing, yet Virgin as the person in the middle is denying.
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Appease Murdoch just to get Stargate, Stargate Atlantis and a couple of others back?
No thanks... I'll wait for the DVD boxsets.
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As a Stargate fan myself, I unfortunately missed Season 2 of Stargate Atlantis when it aired on Sky having only got into Stargate Atlantis after it aired. So I waited for the box set and it has been more than half a year of waiting! When my friends have already seen it, discussed it and enjoyed it, when you have to stay clear of Stargate forums because you can't join in the discussions and risk getting it spoilt for you, for me, it's just not the same. For others maybe it's something worth losing "to get back at Sky", and I could even understand it if it seemed like it was for a good reason or the channel was stopping alltogether, but as far as I can see, the loss of the channels is due to two squabbling companies.