Hi, Harry, sorry to get you so exercised about this, it is only a point of view. I have made clear on a number of occasions that I do not have inside information and that my logic on this is based on previous media reports. I do not take 'random customer service employees' as a source of information as they have been proved on many occasions to provide inaccurate responses to requests for information.
I am not trying to avoid your questions. I respect your point of view and I recognise that we all have our take on this. I was just stating mine. I am the first to agree that SA may well not come to our screens. I am simply trying to put an alternative point of view on what may be happening behind the scenes.
I note a lot of comment stating that 'SA will never come to VM'; 'there is no link between Sky Bravo, etc and SA'; 'Sky Bravo is no longer on the cards'; 'Sky will always want Sky Atlantic to be their USP', etc, and no-one is asking for sources to back these views up. So why am I being bombarded like this to justify my comments? It's not that we have not been here before.
The sources for my views have emanated from, yes, Broadcast Now, but also national newspapers and other websites. I am sorry that I am not sad enough to have kept all these references, although 1andrew1 recollects the Guardian article about Sky Bravo. Why are people choosing to ignore these media reports but hang on to unsourced or unnamed 'insider information'? They got it wrong over BT Sport, apart from one lone celebrity poster who has been much derided at various times, remember him?
To answer your specific questions, Harry:
E mail sent to customers
Virgin Media are seeking out customer views on an ongoing basis to ensure that their offering is in line with what customers want. If the deal with Sky has already been done (and I think it has been), this may enable them to frame their communications to customers appropriately (eg to tell us that adding SA to the offering and increasing the price is the result of popular demand).
Surely you must realise this is most likely way VM will potentially get SA as opposed to talks that started 18 months ago? At no stage have Sky said they have lowered their price for all other providers, it would be good PR for them if they did.
The 'big price rise'
Clearly, this has already been announced and costed, so the customer survey surely couldn't be about whether or not to get SA. If they did so now as a result of that survey, we would be subject to further price rises. They can't spend the money generated twice over.
No they can't spend it twice, but the emails came out before the price rise was decided upon. If I remember correctly, the price quoted in the email was less than has been agreed upon.
Negotiations
I am not privy to the negotiations, and in fact if these have been going on, the regular posters on here know nothing about them. Sky would have insisted on them being strictly confidential, and for good reason.
This is how the negotiations could have gone.
A better relationship now exists between Sky and VM - fact, both companies have acknowledged this. The internet deal between Virgin and Sky is some evidence of this increased co-operation. Whether there is a direct link there with SA, I don't know, but it would be foolish of Virgin not to try to capitalise on deals like this to encourage new deals in the future.
It appears that talks on the carriage of SA by VM were underway in September 2013 (Broadcast report) but the media also commented at the time that the Sky Bravo issue may have delayed these talks. Sky were desperate to get VM on board in order to make this channel viable. VM would have been mad not to link this with their desire to get SA at a reasonable price, and they would not have been too concerned about Sky Bravo since this is just 'more of the same' in the junk category. So VM, I believe, would have held out on this and made it clear they would not take Sky Bravo without Sky Atlantic.
Now in the meantime, the Now TV box was also about ready to be put out on the market. Sky may well have figured that if they could extract more money from Virgin viewers prepared to pay extra for SA, they would try that first. I believe they would have told VM to keep quiet about a deal until Sky had milked SA without VM for all it was worth before allowing us to have it. This has similar logic to it that BT employed regarding their sports channels.
So my message to everyone wanting Sky Atlantic is, don't give up hope. The deal may already have been done.
On the other hand......
---------- Post added at 12:34 ---------- Previous post was at 12:31 ----------
The launch of the Now TV box and the need to get as many people as possible to pay for it before the Christmas season would have delayed any announcement on Sky Atlantic if it was coming to Virgin.
Your other points have been answered elsewhere.
I accept that these are your views, old thing, I just don't have the same fatalistic approach to life as you do!