Quote:
Originally Posted by Top banana
That's not true, they did not have to sell them for the money. They sold them because they inherited them from the telewest, ntl merger and realised it was something they considered not to be a core part of their business.
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That's a massive misrepresentation. The Flextech business was a core part of the Virgin Media launch strategy - do you not remember the fanfare surrounding Virgin 1?
It was in the years down the line that Virgin Media Television (as the business had been renamed) was lined up for sale; it would appear as a method of getting Sky to 'give up the goods'. It was a massive gamble, as it meant essentially sacrificing their bargaining chip for future carriage agreements.
It was prudent therefore that VM secured carriage of the channels for an extended period. However, whoever negotiated this deal obviously neglected to consider channels which Sky may launch in the future. As it stands, there would be nothing to stop Sky launching "Sky 1a", siphoning off all the content from Sky 1 to it, and thereby depriving VM viewers of that content. The Sky Atlantic situation could and should have been prevented.