[RichardCoulter]

The streamers don't need a middle man and Sky know that, so prefer to work with them through gritted teeth instead of pretending that they don't exist like Virgin Media are doing.

By adding them to Sky it benefits the streamers as they have another outlet to push their product and it benefits Sky who hope that adding them to their STB will discourage churn. By doing various deals with the streamers, Sky can give extra incentives to continue subscribing to their main product by offering things like cut price Netflix and free Discovery+.

Sky make a little from subs taken out via them and the streamers sell a few more subs due to the extra shop window from Sky.

Sky customers have the convenience of having things on the one box and possibly on the one bill too.

Meanwhile, Virgin Media linear channels continue to drop off the EPG whilst prices go up. To obtain access to the lost material, their customers have to fork out for separately accessed streaming services.

I think it a certainty that some will inevitably find their VM subscription surplus to requirements.