Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
1. I have not claimed that the new channels are replacements. I am not Virgin Media!
2. That may be so, but getting the free channels back on VM concentrates the minds of the negotiators on the price to be paid for the premium channels.
3. Frankly, we don't know. If Virgin have made their position clear and UKTV won't give way, there is nothing to discuss.
I think UKTV will start feeling the pinch sooner rather than later.
Speaking personally, I am rather pleased that VM are finally making a stand on this. Being reliant on the content of others, this is the little guy standing up to the big guys.
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Ok, some fair points there some just make me wonder..
You're right about not knowing whether VM/UKTV are actively trying to resolve this mess or just engaging in a PR war - but the latter certainly isn't going VM's way at the moment, that's for certain. And if one side isn't currently budging, then yes I guess the other does just need to see where the situation goes...UKTV win this one hands down so far.
So UKTV can't offer the BBC OD archive anymore which does devalue their rights, but I'm sure I read somewhere that they'd offered increased hours of other stuff.. maybe wrong, maybe right, but just putting it out there. It still doesn't alter the loss of 10 linear channels though (plus the HD/+1 variants) - which are indisputably popular.
As soon as the channels got pulled, we knew VM would save on carriage costs but risk losing on customer numbers and disounts - that is certainly happening, I would guess in significant numbers.
UKTV are going to be hit with lower advertising and outright loss of VM's carriage income - I do wonder how long this wil take to have an effect though, how far ahead are these things "banked" and measurable..
Someone else has alluded to the right thing not always being the correct thing, to do - never a truer word said. Whatever VM thought they could and should rightly save in overvalued channel costs, if even half of the "I'm going to cancel" stories are right - they must be sailing close to the wind with losing that in lost customers. And that's saying nothing for the reputational damage.
Only yesterday I was chatting to another relative who has VM TV but only really keeps it for Gold and a couple of others. I'm not sure how ADSL/BT fibre performs in their area, but that will have a large effect on whether all their services get reviewed or just the TV. They've not bothered to do the retentions call yet, but give it another week or so and that's potentially another customer lost.