Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkC1984
So, how comes SKY and Freeview get Drama automatically and Virgin have to negotiate a deal for it? Thought Drama was a straight swap for Blighty, so makes no sense that Virgin have to settle a deal to carry it.
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Different system of working.
Sky don't own the satellites, they like other broadcasters (eg BBC, ITV, UKTV) lease capacity from either Astra or Eutelsat, then use an uplink provider.
The Sky EPG is open to anyone who has a license to broadcast, the broadcaster if they wish then pay the appropriate fee and as long as there are EPG numbers remaining are issued with an EPG number.
If they are a Free To Air (FTA) channel, then that's really the end of it.
If they wish to be part of a Sky subscription, then they accept the Sky rate of so much per subscriber or if they wish negotiate a little more, though there are usually terms in place already for broadcasters who have been on the platform a while who wish to add another channel to to subscription service.