NTL v Telewest

[MrB]

Dear All

I just noticed the news story on the front page about Telewest now offering their great value product through Dixons which prompted me to look at their website.

As an NTL customer (TV/Phone/Broadband), why is it that I have to pay £29.50 for the family pack just so that I can get the channels that I want (mainly Sky One, UK Gold, UK Drama and Granada Plus and all the free to air) and loads of rubbish, while if I was in a Telewest area, I could get the essential package including these for £19.50 per month (including telephone). Their top (standard) package is only £25.50 - still £4 cheaper than NTL.

To compare yourself, Telewest is listed: http://www.telewest.co.uk/html/sorte...package.htm#20
NTL http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/television

On the NTL home website it states, "Great value at only £19.50 per month, exclusive of your telephone line rental which you must purchase with your TV package" - isn't this misleading as they always advertise the great value price but you do not have a choice about the phone line?

It is interesting that NTLHome shows comparisons to Freeview and Sky, but no doubt does not show the comparison to Telewest as you cannot get it in NTL areas. A logical reason, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if they ever did have to go head to head for the same customers - how about opening up the cable system to other providers as BT had to do?

If they merge I hope they adopt Telewest's good practice in packaging - I cannot see why, if Telewest can make money with their channel packages including the best channels, NTL feel the need to limit choice and charge high. I now run all my phone calls through Onetel (not the cheapest) as we are only in evenings and weekends - unlimited calls for £3.99 (and these are not the cheapest now) - if I wanted to be loyal to NTL the equivalent is £9.:sho cked:

Is there a way round this for the television package - someone suggested to me previously that NTL have mid tier packages but for for the sake of a £2 saving it did not seem worth it. Their old system of having packages so that you could choose which channels you wanted used to be a great idea (still available on analogue? Shame that you cannot downgrade to this really as it always seemed to work better than my digital does and was much cheaper).

Rant over - thank you for listening.

Mr B.

[poolking]

So why would they offer comparisons with Telewest, when NTL isn't in competition with Telewest?

They will never complete with each other as they are never in the same area, but it will be interesting to see what changes when (ok, if ) they merge.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by MrB

<Snip>

Firstly- to the site.

Secondly, the simple reason is that the 2 companies don't 'compete', as where you can get ntl you can't get TW (& vice versa)

ntl (& TW for that matter) compete with Sky & BT (& to some degree Freeview & Homechoice), as if you are unhappy with ntl/TW you can easily cancel & get Sky/BT, whereas if you had ntl, you couldn't cancel & get TW (& vice versa again)

So the two companies pricing structures are not really relevant to each other (yet!)

HTH.

[1701-e]

Originally Posted by MrB

why is it that I have to pay £29.50 for the family pack just so that I can get the channels that I want (mainly Sky One, UK Gold, UK Drama and Granada Plus and all the free to air) .....

Granada Plus- if you watched so much you'd know closed down last week!

[bob_builder]

As Neil said, NTL do not compete with Telewest but they do with Sky. As such all, NTL packages are based on the Sky equivalent and that is why they do not offer different channel packs.

It will be interesting to see what happens in 2005 when NTelewestL is created but I suspect that as NTL is the larger company the current branding and price structures will just be adopted across the whole company.

[MrB]

Thank you for your comments - I know that they don't compete and therefore wasn't really expecting them to show the comparison on their site. However, the point I was trying to make was how come Telewest can afford to include the really good channels in the lower packages when NTL do not? They have done this for a while, so it is not just a recent promotion, and they would be buying from the same source?

Is there a way of getting just UK Gold and UK Drama added cheaply to the basic package?

Many thanks

MrB

PS - I haven't watched Granada Plus for a while - must mean that the main channels and UK Gold/UK Drama have had plenty of decent programmes on!

[Chrysalis]

I think the point he is trying to make is why telewest are able to essentially provide more for your money.

[bob_builder]

Originally Posted by MrB

Thank you for your comments - I know that they don't compete and therefore wasn't really expecting them to show the comparison on their site. However, the point I was trying to make was how come Telewest can afford to include the really good channels in the lower packages when NTL do not? They have done this for a while, so it is not just a recent promotion, and they would be buying from the same source?

Is there a way of getting just UK Gold and UK Drama added cheaply to the basic package?

Many thanks

MrB

PS - I haven't watched Granada Plus for a while - must mean that the main channels and UK Gold/UK Drama have had plenty of decent programmes on!

Fair enough! I think Telewest can afford to do it and so could NTL but they choose not to. (In fact, NTL used to offer a completely different system where you could choose to add between 1 and 5 extra packs for £4 each but they decided to drop that in favour of mirroring Sky. Whereas Telewest are still using their "old" system which differs from Sky.)

There are only the mid-tier packages that might include UK Gold and UK Drama but, as you said, they are not really worth the £2 saving over the Family Pack.

Basically, Telewest choose to beat Sky on price and NTL do not. I imagine that when they merge it will be the Telewest packages that disapear.

[poolking]

I don't think it's a case of NTL not affording to have good channels, I would have thought it to be the other way round, the channel operators coming up with the carriage fees to have space on NTLs network.