[Niknod]

I used to live in Hull, which is an uncabled area. During the last 15 years I lived there I had Sky, from the analogue days through to Sky+. When I moved into a cabled area my curiosity made me get Virgin rather than Sky just to see how it compared. I could always give it a year and then revert to Sky if I wasn't happy.

I was awed by the On Demand and Catch Ups services. I found them top notch, and to add to it all, there was the TV channel line up which took all the channels from Sky which were worth watching.... Filtering out all the rubbish that showed quizzes (name a dog, come on... just one dog could win you £25,000... give us a call and you could be talking to me....), teleshopping and girls on sofa channels. It was a TV service made in heaven for me.

There was the Sky Basics dispute which was a bit of a bind being without the leading multichannel station. But that was solved after a year or so, and once again Virgin was way ahead of Skys offering.

However this year it seems Virgin aren't interested in TV anymore, they sold the channels they owned, of which most got closed down by Sky, and since then it's been like a sinking ship. MTV Classics, MTV Shows were removed despite the fact they continue on Sky. CBS launched CBS Action and CBS Drama which remain missing from the Virgin line up. Sky replaced the channles they had closed that formerly belonged to Virgin, with SKy Atlantic... another channel that failed to appear on Virgin, and soon we see the launch of Sony, another high profile TV gem which will sit high up in the portfolio of the Sky EPG, and which will also be missing from Virgin. In short this year we have lost Channel 1, Bravo, MTV Classic, MTV Shows and Pop. These have been replaced by True Entertainment, while the high profile new channels have passed us by.

I am staying with Virgin because of the Catch up at the moment, but I am quite actively thinking about switching back to Sky, and if things don't change soon it won't be a hard decision.