Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuart C
Actually, I was basing my comments about lack of interest on Sky's own figures.. However, I think the main problem that Virgin have (and they have hinted as much, but not directly said it) is simple. Sky. Sky have spent a fortune licencing channels for HD, and ensured they had exclusivity clauses put into the contracts.
I personally think that if our government is serious about ensuring competition in the pay and subscription TV market, they need to ensure these clauses are banned from ALL providers.
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My comments about HD content is not just as limited as you might think. With blu-rays people were not going to pay £23 for a BD of a tiny catalogue, now the content is getting out there and the price has dropped a lot people are buying them. High Definition games sold on XBOX 360 as the content was there, if it hadn't been that console would be dead. Their download service on theirs and other consoles is poor content wise and overpriced - so it's not doing roaring business. Just about whatever new idea someone has the first question the public ask is how much content is there. They are always skeptical of these things as companies usually take the biscuit releasing tiny amounts of content and vastly overpricing it.
I wasn't talking to you personally I was just saying the numbers game could carry on forever. People used to say similarly daft things about freeview as the numbers crept (faster past 2,3,5 million mark). I was talking about broadcasters as well as providers. The BBC are very behind the times in my opinion restricting themselves to 9hrs a day (which they haven't even quite reached yet) and just banging on the same repeats and thinking people will somehow magically watch a non-simulcast channel that is barely ever mentioned and is rammed full of repeats. Five had a virtual silence on HD until the other day where they've suddenly decided they'd like some of the action. ITV somehow manage to actually put on content that people want to watch on a platform virtually nobody could get.
While virgin are blocked out of many of the channels Virgin could surely have managed to bag ITV HD before now? Eurosport HD? The rate card needs looking at very badly. Unfortunately even some cable subscribers on discussions on this think that for example the Basic HD channels should not be included in the basic rate card. I think it's where virgin made a big mistake signing away their life till 2011 for the SD versions.