[RichardCoulter]

It's been calculated that they have enough space for only four more HD channels, more if in SD.

The capacity looks to have been taken from the space reserved for UHD channels.

The UKTV channels now have an advert playing in the breaks advising viewers of the impending removal and asking Virgin Media customers to call Virgin Media to complain.

I noticed yesterday that, whenever UKTV were playing this advert (to all their customers, not just VM subscribers), a pop up was overlaid onto the bottom of the screen with a message from VM!

I'm not sure how they did this, but it doesn't show up on recordings or when you rewind to delay TV. This is the first time i've ever seen them do this, you'd think that broadcasters would have something to say about VM interfering with the output of their channels. I guess somebody must be manually doing this as VM won't be privvy to when UKTV will be showing these ads.

I wonder what the new test services are for? From what people have said (bar the UKTV channels, timeshift and platform exclusive channels), the salient channels that we don't have are now only Disney HD, MTV Classics and CNN HD. Are there any more? If not, the only channel we are missing completely that VM have access to is MTV Classics.

One good thing could be that, if they do manage to come to an agreement or the channels return after a short time, it has forced VM to carry most of the missing channels and a few more too.