SKY VS Virgin Media

[a_jonny_boy]

Sky are bullies and i think virgin media is great and i have had it since it was cable and wirless. Im realey only losing sky one and two because the other three are on freeveiw. i only watched lost on sky one now so i can just rent it from blockbuster when its on DVD so up urs Sky

[kavster]

Sky are out of order but Virgin may make big changes to its customer services so if they can do that I will stay. I have been a sky customer and left to go to NTL because of price and the cr*p customer services I got from sky, NTL faired no better. I am looking for good choice of programs and decent price and most of all if i do have to ring up for any reason I dont want to be on the phone for over forty mins before i talk to some-one and then passed to another department. Some-one give us a provider with excellent customer services and I cant see any-one leaving so sort it out.

[concepttwenty20]

i miss sky news i always watched it

[SanFranCrisko]

Sky One will be missed but if Virgin Central can build up a nice arsenal of programs, even acquire blockbusters like 24, Lost etc... which is not impossible, and stream them via on demand then they'll win 1000s of customers a week.

However, I think they're being extremely unprofessional about the whole incident even if Sky were being very unfair. I'm surprised at a company of Virgin's size stooping to schoolboy tactics like name calling via EPG and static messages slagging Sky on ex-Sky channels.

[grabbi]

I wonder how Sky knew this...

That means one of the Sky crew has Virgin Media at home? lol

I don't mind it. MAde me chuckle. Sky Snooze.

I'm sure it wasn't an instruction by Virgin, more a practical Joke.

Still, they rewrote the names! Wow! Not illegal, is it?

What have they (Sky) done?

Refused Virgin to Continue to show the channels while an agreement is made, thus showing no willingness.

Asking for money for flagging channels. (Oh! Hello Sir Alex Ferguson! My name is Sven Goran Eriksson... and my son plays football. He is 27, and plays for a local Sunday League. He is 279lbs and runs like a woman. Give me £60m and he is yours.)
In real life: 'Oh! Hello Sir Richard Branson and Steve Burch! My name is Greedy Murdoch, and I have a bunch of Channels that have been dropping 20% audience figures on Cable over 3 Years. We run repeats of crap shows, all available on DVD, and we have 2 Flagship Shows that people actually watch (24 and Lost) yet LivingTV have Most Haunted, CSI, Americas Next Top Model and so on, so, In contrast, pay us almost £40m a year for Sky One, Sky News (we won an award you know... BBC news kicks our asses but hey! we are Sky!) Sky Sports News, Travel and Travel Extra...

Virgin: No. Sorry. Your channels are crap, and in the bunch of 5 channels, you have 2 shows we are slightly interested in, and we can get them on VOD this Year anyroad.

lol

---------- Post added at 01:04 ---------- Previous post was at 00:42 ----------

You have to think also, how much will Virgin make from this?

It will definitly contribute to the Q1 2007 results from Jan 1st to March 31st, and that's just the £35m they aren't paying.

Put that towards contracts on VOD for Lost and possibly 24 (note: no-one has second run rights on 24, like Ch4 has for Lost.) as well as the money Virgin are making from our Subscriptions without these channels... (I know everyone is saying 'you get it if your telephone, bla bla bla' but come on, there are 5 channels, not one, and they are worth something to Consumers.) Say its £1 for Sky One etc, that's £3m further to add.

Maybe we could even get exclusive rights to something up and coming in the states, and give 24/Lost a run for its money.

I believe Lost has Lost (no pun intended) its glitter now. Its not as Hyped up, and is running its course.

Series usually only survive about 6 seasons, then it becomes repetitive.

Prison Break is on Season 2, and that's better... Five got that, up and coming. Get that on VOD possibly?

[Sumanji]

People who leave VM now are extremely short-sighted...

[rogerdraig]

Originally Posted by Sumanji

People who leave VM now are extremely short-sighted...

and why would that be we can always switch back

most of us who will switch dont watch many of the channels they have left so why would we stay with a package we dont use

and i dont use vod either except for the free bit and then only if i managed to forget to record it on my freeview hard drive

kids want sky 1 i want startrek stargate etc wife likes 24 etc

the only other channels we bother with are discovery fx and bravo cartoon network boomarang and those very infrequently

[valor]

Virgin Media is the best thing that ever happenned to NTL Telewest, the future is what its all about...
I can see SKY with a sweat on its brows and wriggling with in its preverbial shoes..
If anyone is thinking of switching to SKY they must be short sighted and stupid...Stick to your Virgin and see what happens..even NOW VM has the best TV packages ever to happen...
OK I love my Stargate stuff...but WTF Sky 1 and 2 is are channels of Reruns and Adverts which IMHO can be done without...VIRGIN Media have the best ideas ever to hit our TVs and i can only see things improving ... so all you NTL/Telewest peeps should keep your subsriptions or you will be biting your tongues in times to come...LONG LIVE VIRGIN MEDIA and the best Television you can get....

[TracerTong]

I'll miss Sky News only.
Sky One was only ever watched for the Simpsons/Futurama. And that was only between 7pm-9pm weeknights. Any other time, wasn't worth it.
Anyhow, I have the Futurama Boxset, and the likes of the Simpsons/Stargate/Lost etc can be had by other means. Ususally the new stuff before it is actually shown on Sky One.

It's a sad state of affairs that 2 big companies have come to this childish stalemate. No switching for me. The process of going thru CS just would **** me off too much. Then go over to SKY (never again) and their CS is no better.

[Paul K]

Originally Posted by rogermevans

and why would that be we can always switch back

In a years time maybe. Everyone that goes to Sky is just giving Mr Murdoch exactly what he wants and do you all really want one person to have so much control and influence over what you watch and how you watch it?

[shugdot]

I like the idea of VOD but the choice offered on Virgin Central is pathetic. Teleport replay on ex-Telewest is not dependable; you can follow a series for a few weeks and then find that the last episode is not available. I don't intend to move from Virgin but they will have to start offering their customers a more varied choice of VOD if they want to keep their customers and even more so if they want to attract more viewers. I have only recently decided to upgrade to a VIP package but I am considering cancelling it. I haven't do so as yet for I am sure that CS will be very difficult to contact because of the actions of SKY the other day.

[Geezer69]

Its just a simple case of product. I am missing Sky Sports News and Sky 1 already and it has only been a few days. I am moving house soon and have been thinking of who to go with. I am afraid to say Sky offers me a better product. Last night was typical of my last few years with NTL - EPG locking up, continually searching, remote taking ages to respond. I really want HD also, and there is just so little content on VM. As much as it pains me - Murdoch has got my money, at least for a year and then maybe re-evaluate.

Originally Posted by Geezer69

Its just a simple case of product. I am missing Sky Sports News and Sky 1 already and it has only been a few days. I am moving house soon and have been thinking of who to go with. I am afraid to say Sky offers me a better product. Last night was typical of my last few years with NTL - EPG locking up, continually searching, remote taking ages to respond. I really want HD also, and there is just so little content on VM. As much as it pains me - Murdoch has got my money, at least for a year and then maybe re-evaluate.

Nice reasonable post, no vitriol, no points scoring, and a decision was made that's best for you.

[AndyCambs]

Originally Posted by Sumanji

People who leave VM now are extremely short-sighted...

Specially when Sky increase prices to compensate for the lost revenue..

Originally Posted by Toto

Yeh, a good point.

I think its all wind on Sky's part, just upping the anti really. I voted to stay with Virgin, I've been a customer since 97, and they have rarely put a foot wrong with me.

I'd miss Sky 1 a little if they oulled it, but given that about only 20% of their daily offering are not repeats, I have to ask if I would miss it that much.

On the above point, and not trying to make any points, I thought it may be useful to quantify the amount of new programming.

I went through this week's Telegraph TV guide, 24 Feb - 2 Mar 2007 (which shows if satellite programmes are new), and here are the new programmes for this week on Sky One -
Saturday - nothing new
Sunday - Dream Team 8pm, 24 9pm, Lost 10pm
Monday - Project Catwalk 9pm
Tuesday - Stargate SG-1 8pm, Battlestar Galactica 9pm
Wednesday - Stargate Atlantis 8pm, Dresden Files 9pm
Thursday - Bones 9pm, Rescue Me 10pm
Friday - Crash Test Dummies 8pm

11 hours of new programmes in that week, of which 5 hours were Science Fiction (which I like, but not everyone does).

I think if people are unhappy, they should switch to Sky, and that should solve their problem for now; it's all the emotion, vitriol and often downright nastiness (on all sides) that amazes me - it's not life or death, it's just some TV programmes.