Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
Nope, VM will lose the right to carry Sky Sports 1 and 2 when their carriage agreement ends.
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And you know this for certain? Of course you don't. The current Sky carriage deal with Virgin was renewed last year and runs until 2019 (
http://gu.com/p/3p679?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other).
Virgin Media is not a threat to Sky's TV content business and, with the exception of the withholding of Sky Atlantic, is its biggest customer in the wholesaling game. Why would Sky not extend existing and profitable agreements that add an audience of 4m homes to their core market? Sky makes more out of each VM Sky Sports subscriber than VM.
BT is different, a threat to Sky because it challenges them on those critical sports rights, pushing up the price at each negotiation and, with the Champions League, winning outright. Virgin is a commercial partner for Sky, BT a commercial threat.