Incorrectly assigned Regional BBC & ITV on Virgin Media?

GardenCity_Mark · 29-11-2009, 07:44

Does anybody feel that they may have been incorrectly assigned their regional BBC & ITV on Virgin media, mainly in the Meridian Region?

Meridian, which as you may know is the regional TV service that covers the south of England but also covers the area that used to be classed as South Midlands but the South Midlands service was made defunct about 18 months ago.

My Mother has recently had Virgin Media installed, only to find that she had been assigned to the London Carlton Region service, which does not include any news or weather for her local area. Channels 858 & 870 are normally allocated for regional channels but are not listed on the EPG.

We have contacted Virgin Media, who sent an engineer out to address the problem. He advised that there was nothing he could do as the nearest Virgin Media Head End was in Watford and that the Watford station distributed TV for the London region.

At the moment people with this problem have to switch over to Terrestrial TV just to watch the regional news, but what happens when the digital switch over takes place? Will they have to buy a Freeview box, just to watch the local news? I think not!!

The engineer has suggested that anybody who is in the
same situation, to complain to Virgin Media about this, as they will only recognise it as an issue, if people complain in mass.

So please, if you are experiencing the same problem, contact Virgin Media & express your concern!

nodrogd · 29-11-2009, 17:58

I think we would all like to have every regional varient available to us, as satellite viewers do. But VM are constrained by the amount of spectrum available to them. I see lots of posts moaning about the lack of HD channels, which are very spectrum hungery, and without which VM would start leaking customers to sky.

Indeed in some areas VM are yet to switch off their analogue TV signal (which incidently used to give us a choice of ITV London or Anglia region here) to create more capacity.

I don't think they are ever going to please everybody.

And yes I do have a freeview TV & DVD recorder, as I and anyone else who doesn't have V+ will need to record one channel and watch another when 2012 comes along.

GardenCity_Mark · 29-11-2009, 18:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by nodrogd

I think we would all like to have every regional varient available to us, as satellite viewers do. But VM are constrained by the amount of spectrum available to them. I see lots of posts moaning about the lack of HD channels, which are very spectrum hungery, and without which VM would start leaking customers to sky.

Indeed in some areas VM are yet to switch off their analogue TV signal (which incidently used to give us a choice of ITV London or Anglia region here) to create more capacity.

I don't think they are ever going to please everybody.

And yes I do have a freeview TV & DVD recorder, as I and anyone else who doesn't have V+ will need to record one channel and watch another when 2012 comes along.

Thanks for the response, it gives me a bit more insight into the situation.

buckleb · 29-11-2009, 20:37

Living in Crawley I get BBC London.

With our old Sky system we used to get BBC South East which, to be fair, only has different local news. I think I've got used to watching news about tube strikes and Boris Johnson now, rather than the cat-stuck-up-a-tree type of headlines from South East

spikey · 16-12-2009, 16:05

Hello
We are having the same problem ...we are in Kent but can only get the London News. We would like to know whats going on in our local area.
We cannot switch to terreestial TV because the signal is to bad. So we do feel pretty upset with virgin and now wished we had gone to Sky

Digital Fanatic · 16-12-2009, 18:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by buckleb

Living in Crawley I get BBC London.

With our old Sky system we used to get BBC South East which, to be fair, only has different local news. I think I've got used to watching news about tube strikes and Boris Johnson now, rather than the cat-stuck-up-a-tree type of headlines from South East

haha regional news is pants at the best of times isn't it?

bonzoe · 16-12-2009, 18:28

We have to go to 858 and 870 for our correct regional TV, otherwise get Midlands.......

GardenCity_Mark · 16-12-2009, 21:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by spikey

Hello
We are having the same problem ...we are in Kent but can only get the London News. We would like to know whats going on in our local area.
We cannot switch to terreestial TV because the signal is to bad. So we do feel pretty upset with virgin and now wished we had gone to Sky

As I mentioned in my original post, the more people who complain about this problem, the more likely it will be resolved

bensden · 20-12-2009, 16:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by GardenCity_Mark

As I mentioned in my original post, the more people who complain about this problem, the more likely it will be resolved

I live in Maidstone which is in the Meridian area, On channel numbers 103 we get ITV London, On 871 we get Meridian local TV,So the best of both worlds, Have you not got the 871 channel ?

GardenCity_Mark · 20-12-2009, 17:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by bensden

I live in Maidstone which is in the Meridian area, On channel numbers 103 we get ITV London, On 871 we get Meridian local TV,So the best of both worlds, Have you not got the 871 channel ?

Unfortunately the only ITV channel on the EPG is 103 (ITV London)

nodrogd · 20-12-2009, 17:43

It would be interesting to know if these local variants in the 800 range are originating from the local headends or from the new super headend at Langley.

Also with a new TV network & EPG coming in, will this eventually put these channels back in their correct places.

Tod · 20-12-2009, 20:51

My local ITV is on 871 as well, much more relevant than London which is in 103. You would think they could change this.

Andrewcrawford23 · 20-12-2009, 20:56

it depends on the headend you conenct to and it not easy to change the lcoal headend you conenct to

tehazza · 20-12-2009, 23:04

it is impossible to change the local headend that your assigned to. the only other way that VM could implement this is allow the use of different network ids when the settop is installed.

eg if in manchester you are after news from the midlands they could have the box set to stoke area where midlands news is broadcast.

or if you wanted say granada regional in stoke for example they could set the box to a manchester id to make it select the granada itv and northwest BBC channels.

Flyboy · 21-12-2009, 11:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by tehazza

it is impossible to change the local headend that your assigned to. the only other way that VM could implement this is allow the use of different network ids when the settop is installed.

eg if in manchester you are after news from the midlands they could have the box set to stoke area where midlands news is broadcast.

or if you wanted say granada regional in stoke for example they could set the box to a manchester id to make it select the granada itv and northwest BBC channels.

Which basically means that it is possible to change it.

All that is needed is to re-install the box.