Sky Atlantic on Virgin Media

[muppetman11]

To be fair though the Guardian has reported that Sky were in talks with VM and BT about carrying Sky Atlantic.

Originally Posted by muppetman11

To be fair though the Guardian has reported that Sky were in talks with VM and BT about carrying Sky Atlantic.

Have Sky actually said that though muppetman. I looked back in your posts to see if you had posted a link to the article and I found you posted this on 06/01/11 "Sky Atlantic HD is a key part of our strategy to help further grow the content gap between what you can get with Sky, and what you can get elsewhere." Note that Sky always say HD after there programmes.

On googling this I found this press release from Sky from which that is a quote. That is pretty conclusive proof, if we needed any, that Sky don't just want the channel exclusives that they have already got but want to grow that gap. Sky Atlantic being a key part of that strategy. Case over.

Since I have Sky and not Virgin, my vote is probably somewhat obvious.




( Dont care .............. )

[nialli]

Originally Posted by ahardie

Have Sky actually said that though muppetman. I looked back in your posts to see if you had posted a link to the article and I found you posted this on 06/01/11 "Sky Atlantic HD is a key part of our strategy to help further grow the content gap between what you can get with Sky, and what you can get elsewhere." Note that Sky always say HD after there programmes.

On googling this I found this press release from Sky from which that is a quote. That is pretty conclusive proof, if we needed any, that Sky don't just want the channel exclusives that they have already got but want to grow that gap. Sky Atlantic being a key part of that strategy. Case over.

Check this post's comments from Neil Berkett:

the details are confidential I'm sorry. We are in negotiations over Atlantic though.
Neil Berkett | Chief Executive Officer Virgin Media

And also if you look at the (official) Sky Atlantic Twitter feed you'll see a few comments to substantiate that talks are taking place.
What Stuart Murphy has talked about was Sky Atlantic differentiating between pay TV and Freeview/Freesat, which is Sky's bigger rival (and the biggest digital platform of them all of course). Sky want people to pay for their channels and advertisers to have sufficient reach - Virgin Media is part of their strategy for Sky Atlantic I'm sure. The exclusivity is a short-term tactic to get as much as it can out of VM for carriage, maximise the benefit of the Sky Atlantic HD launch marketing, and maybe spoil a little VM's TiVo marketing.

Originally Posted by nialli

Check this post's comments from Neil Berkett:

And also if you look at the (official) Sky Atlantic Twitter feed you'll see a few comments to substantiate that talks are taking place.
What Stuart Murphy has talked about was Sky Atlantic differentiating between pay TV and Freeview/Freesat, which is Sky's bigger rival (and the biggest digital platform of them all of course). Sky want people to pay for their channels and advertisers to have sufficient reach - Virgin Media is part of their strategy for Sky Atlantic I'm sure. The exclusivity is a short-term tactic to get as much as it can out of VM for carriage, maximise the benefit of the Sky Atlantic HD launch marketing, and maybe spoil a little VM's TiVo marketing.

I hope you are right Nialli. Personally I can see no other way of reading that statement in their own press release as saying their main reason for having the channel was to grow the amount of content that other platforms had no access to.

[Felim_Doyle]

Personal opinion/observation: Tweets and other unofficial sources (which I have not seen) aside, the TV advert. shows a SkyAtlanticHD logo with the narrative stating that it's only available to Sky customers, all of which is ambiguous in a number of ways. Even if it is not available on VM, BT etc. at launch, I believe that it will be coming very soon afterwards, at least in SD to begin with.

An example of ambiguity from the late Ronnie Barker ...

A mother asks her little boy to "go across the road and see how old Mrs. Smith is". So, which is the young lad being tasked with?

• Ask Mrs. Smith how old she is
• Ask old Mrs. Smith how she is

I can't see a way to punctuate the mother's instruction to make it clearer.

If I subscribe to Sky channels such as sports, movies etc. on VM, am I a Sky subscriber? That's a phrase that Sky use all of the time in their advertising. So, does it include subscribers to Sky channels on platforms other than BSkyB?

Interesting post Felim but I don't think there is any ambiguity about the Sky press release. On your point about whether we are Sky customers or not I don't think Sky regards us as such. I think they treat us in a pretty shabby way if they do. For instance giving VM customers only part of the package that they give to other customers when it could be considered cable customers are paying top wack already.

[Felim_Doyle]

Well obviously we're 'not Sky customers' as we don't pay fees directly to Sky but are we 'Sky subscribers' as we do subscribe to Sky channels?

Originally Posted by Felim_Doyle

Well obviously we're 'not Sky customers' as we don't pay fees directly to Sky but are we 'Sky subscribers' as we do subscribe to Sky channels?

I would have said we are customers of their content division. If for instance I buy a British Airways ticket through an travel agent aren't I still a BA customer. Still, no matter I think we know what each other is saying.

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Felim_Doyle

Well obviously we're 'not Sky customers' as we don't pay fees directly to Sky but are we 'Sky subscribers' as we do subscribe to Sky channels?

Totally agree with you.... I had this argument a while ago and got shouted down! lol

[devilincarnate]

Originally Posted by Digital Fanatic

Totally agree with you.... I had this argument a while ago and got shouted down! lol

You know why DF you got shouted down you are staff and i think that there are people on here who think that it is open season on VM staff no matter what has been said

[Chad]

It doesn't matter how you try to look at it, we aren't SKY customers. Virgins website makes that pretty clear.

"Premium TV Services are provided to you by Virgin Media Entertainment, the trading name of Future Entertainment SARL which is a subsidiary of Virgin Media Inc. Premium channels provided by Virgin Media Entertainment are: Sky Movies Action & Adventure*, Sky Movies Classics, Sky Movies Comedy*, Sky Movies Crime & Thriller*, Sky Movies Drama & Romance*, Sky Movies Family*, Sky Movies Indie*, Sky Movies Modern Greats*, Sky Movies Sci-Fi & Horror*, Sky Movies Premiere*, Sky Movies Premiere +1, Sky Movies Showcase*, Sky Sports 1*, Sky Sports 2*, Sky Sports 3, Sky Sports 4."

If I go to a restaurant and buy a meal I am the restaurants customer. If my steak has gristle all the way through it I complain to the restaurant, not their food supplier. I'm in no way the customer of the food supplier. I haven't paid the food supplier directly to provide me with my meal.

If we are SKY customers they'd let us have access to SKY Player, SKY Mobile and SKY 3D.

Neither Virgin or SKY class us as SKY customers. It's only us ourselves that seem to see it that way.

Originally Posted by Chad

It doesn't matter how you try to look at it, we aren't SKY customers. Virgins website makes that pretty clear.

"Premium TV Services are provided to you by Virgin Media Entertainment, the trading name of Future Entertainment SARL which is a subsidiary of Virgin Media Inc. Premium channels provided by Virgin Media Entertainment are: Sky Movies Action & Adventure*, Sky Movies Classics, Sky Movies Comedy*, Sky Movies Crime & Thriller*, Sky Movies Drama & Romance*, Sky Movies Family*, Sky Movies Indie*, Sky Movies Modern Greats*, Sky Movies Sci-Fi & Horror*, Sky Movies Premiere*, Sky Movies Premiere +1, Sky Movies Showcase*, Sky Sports 1*, Sky Sports 2*, Sky Sports 3, Sky Sports 4."

If I go to a restaurant and buy a meal I am the restaurants customer. If my steak has gristle all the way through it I complain to the restaurant, not their food supplier. I'm in no way the customer of the food supplier. I haven't paid the food supplier directly to provide me with my meal.

If we are SKY customers they'd let us have access to SKY Player, SKY Mobile and SKY 3D.

Neither Virgin or SKY class us as SKY customers. It's only us ourselves that seem to see it that way.

Of course they shouldn't give us access to Sky player. We would have to be customers of their distribution platform to have that. We are customers of their content though.
What ever way you look at it customers who pay what they do for Sky sports and £7 per month most of which goes to sky should have access to Sky sports 3 & 4 HD. Also VM shouldn't have had to sell their channels to Sky to get red button access for Sky sports when customers are already paying good money for it.

[muppetman11]

Think it's safe to say Sky Atlantic won't come to VM in either SD or HD read this

http://www.joe.ie/entertainment/what...shade-008684-1

May I point out that a lot of stuff that was exclusive to Sky but not produced by them does eventually find it's way onto other channels.