Quote:
Originally Posted by Superblade7
I'm a sports fan and will obviously miss ESPN from my XL TV pack. It would be nice to get a straight replacement and have BT Sport included but I very much doubt that will happen.
Sky and Virgin could however play a clever game here if they wanted to squeeze the opposition. Sky know Virgin are here for the long haul and could allow Virgin to have Sky Atlantic and pop it in the XL TV package with the costs covered by the savings from the loss of ESPN. Sky could also give Virgin access to the other Sky Sports channels in HD within the Sky Premium HD channels. This would then make both Sky and Virgin much more attractive and reduce churn from both to BT. Whilst it would reduce some of the exclusivity of Sky, it would increase their advertising revenue and also make BT a far less attractive option against Sky and Virgin. You only have to think back to what Sky did to ITV Digital to see how they like to crush the opposition!
BT will do a deal with Virgin as they are going to have to make it available as widely as possible in order to recoup some of the money they paid for the footy rights. Virgin could then offer it as a premium channel and then at least those who wish to subscribe to it would be able to, albeit for an additional cost.
Obviously this is just my opinion but I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this pan out over the coming couple of months.
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Very good and interesting points in your post, maybe you should make this a suggestion to the Hierarchy of Virgin/Sky!......
