[GuestUK]

I get the impression that it was Virgin trying to get rid of Sky, rather than the other way around. They've been very focussed in their PR to make it look like that wasn't the case, but they don't seem to be doing much about it, which if they were really concerned, they would. As the NCC said, they could have arranged a temporary carriage deal while they worked it out so customers could keep the Sky channels while they came to an arrangement. Virgin didn't. In the end, I think it came down to a simple risk - would Virgin benefit more without the sky channels than with, and they banked on the former and cut the channels, all the whilke making it look like Sky's fault so they could go forward with their plans.

My concern with moving to VOD for movies is that's it's moving to a much more restricted model than Sky Movies provides. No longer will you be able to pay a monthly fee and get access to loads of movies, instead you'll have to pay for each movie with quite high prices, and be unable to record them or archive them to DVD and such, unlike you can with Sky Movies - heading down the much more restricted route, especially when some movies are starting to be HDCP protected and require HDMI, ensuring there's no way to get at the content other than watch it, and pay if you want to watch it again, which I think is a bad thing. Plus, there is something to be said about Sky's model in that you can flick to the channel and get caught into whats on, wheras with VOD, there's a lot of choice and unless you know specifically what you want, it's harder to just get into it, especially when you have to pay too. Plus, Sky's offering will become even better when they group the channels into categories - eg. a sci-fi fan can switch to the channel and watch sci-fi movies all day, some they may find good, some they may find bad, and not have to pay anything extra, and be able to record the ones they like - which wouldn't be possible with VOD.

As for sports, who knows. While Virgin have denied working with Setanta for a sports news channel at the moment, they mentioned they have a good relationship with Setanta and would possibly consider working with them in future ventures. Setanta has come up quite a lot over the years, and if they teamed with Virgin maybe they could pose a risk to Sky.