jj20x

Some of them are dross and sponsored/pseudo-shopping channels. Although the following would appeal to some. I doubt that they would have sufficient audience levels to justify investment in additional transport streams:

And the full bouquet of Sony channels and associated timeshifts? How many times do people need to watch endless repeats of The Waltons / Little House on the Prairie / Highway to Heaven / MASH / Touched by an Angel etc? If someone misses the start of a 40 odd year old movie, do they really need to watch it on the timeshift when it will be repeated in a few weeks anyway? If they haven't seen it in 40 odd years, what's another few weeks?

If VM invest in additional transport streams, we all end up paying the extra cost. Is that really justifiable for channels that will attract single figure audience levels? We've just seen threats of mass exodus from VM as a result of the announced price increase.

Also, space is at a premium. The channel bonding requirements of newer versions of DOCSIS is forcing new frequency assignments. Forcing the TV transport streams onto higher frequency UHF channels as DOCSIS moves onto the VHF channels. VM is made up of several different hybrid cable setups, not all are made equal and some are less responsive at higher frequencies than others. So, some regions will struggle to fit in multiple additional transport streams at these frequencies.

Sure, MPEG4 will help, when VM finally get around to converting broadcast streams to MPEG4. DVB-C2 would help more but would involve totally new infrastructure and STBs. It's not just a case of having limitless capacity to add channels nobody will watch.

The foreign language Worldbox apps seem to indicate that VM is moving in this direction. If these are a success, that could encourage them to widen the scope.