[Ultimate.Conj]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

True, they aren't giving out anywhere near the discounts that were given when the Sky basics left and, apparently, staff were briefed to keep customers at any cost.

VM has previously said that they want to be a service enabler, ie all content would be available on the V6. People don't want the hassle of coming out of the VM ecosystem, even to Freeview (If they have access to it that is) or pay a further £7.99 a month to regain these channels.

I was gobsmacked when VM effectively encouraged customers to have a look at what Freeview had to offer, VM are likely to find that some customers are pleasantly surprised at what they can get without paying them for it!

It's also true that there are many more (and cheaper) ways to access channels than there were in the Sky basics dispute, again, customers may find that one of these services perfectly meets all their needs.

I don't know the actual cost per subscriber for providing the UKTV channels, but was told a couple of years of do ago that paying Sky what they were asking for Sky Atlantic would have worked out at something like 45p a week. This figure is significantly more than the average cost of what it costs to bring a channel to subscribers.

The real costs to VM won't be the discounts given, but the loss of actual and future customers for years to come alonv with increased cartiage costs.

45p a week cannot be right. Are you saying virgin refused to pay sky £ 23.40 a year for Atlantic?

Or do you mean 45p per week per customer?