Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2009)

[Arthurgray50@blu]

Lets put it this way, I live on the main flight path to Heathrow Airport, and they are pretty low, so when l see a pink elephant flying past my house, that is when l believe that HD channels will come to VM, and l mean a lot of them, that is when l believe they will arrive.

[Andrewcrawford23]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Lets put it this way, I live on the main flight path to Heathrow Airport, and they are pretty low, so when l see a pink elephant flying past my house, that is when l believe that HD channels will come to VM, and l mean a lot of them, that is when l believe they will arrive.

I think you will have other tihngs to worry about then but from teh response form some channel provides suggest virgin are actively trying to get hd channels and they will probally be here by 2010 with us seeing the first maybe by summer 09

[Arthurgray50@blu]

Hi Andy, I don't know wether you know, but 2010 is seven months away, and there is still no gurrantee that we will get them, that is the reason why so many VM subs are going over to Sky, as VM cannot gurrantee the channels.

We have been hearing talk about this for months, but nothing is happening, VM don't even put out leaflets saying when this is likely to happen, l get leaflets offering deals, but nothing else.

[BenMcr]

No they don't put leaflets out because Virgin don't sell the V+ on the basis of HD anymore

Also what would be the point of a leaflet saying 'we don't have much HD at the moment'

It would be the same as Sky going 'our broadband is likely to be very slow where you live'

[Andrewcrawford23]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Hi Andy, I don't know wether you know, but 2010 is seven months away, and there is still no gurrantee that we will get them, that is the reason why so many VM subs are going over to Sky, as VM cannot gurrantee the channels.

We have been hearing talk about this for months, but nothing is happening, VM don't even put out leaflets saying when this is likely to happen, l get leaflets offering deals, but nothing else.

Arthur i want a soruce that prove that because the lastest qauter results suggest a increase for virign for v+ users not a decline and most people want it for pvr not hd, but peple do want hd and it will be coming just not when the ceo said it would by end of 09 i say virign will have 2 or 3 hd channel possibaly dnt count me on this if it doesnt happen about 10, by end of 2010 they should have about 8 with the possiable of 14. and if the ofcom review goe sin there favour the sky hd channels

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by Andrewcrawford23

Arthur i want a soruce that prove that because the lastest qauter results suggest a increase for virign for v+ users not a decline

Indeed.

Just to completely blow Arthur's point out the water, they showed churn was DOWN, from 1.4% in Q4 2007 to 1.2% in Q4 2008 and TV has a decent amount of net additions (44,500 in the quarter) and V+ subscriber numbers also continues to grow (52,800 more in Q4 alone) taking the total to 521,500.

Interestingly in the conference call they made a point to say that churn in V+ users (the very users you'd expect churn to be high in, if they were all leaving for sky HD) is the lowest of all groups.

I'm struggling to see where, other than on forums, there is a mass exodus of people from VM to Sky for HD?

Your average subscriber doesn't really care too much about HD. This is shown by the fact that of Sky's 9 million subscribers less than 600,000 of them have Sky HD. That's less than 6%. If less than 6% of Sky's subscribers care about HD, and many of them will have been people who picked their service because of the availability of HD, how many of VM's do you think do? And even if they do, how many will be willing to give up VOD for it? (Just for a comparison, nearly 52% of users access VOD)

The amount of noise on here about HD is because users on a forum are not your average subscriber, there is always going to be a disproportionate amount of people with issues with the service due to the nature of the forum.

[demented]

Geez people, if we're going to play the numbers game at least get them right. Sky+ HD numbers are a lot higher than 600,000 as people very well know and this is the nth time people have quoted old figures (perhaps deliberately) to get their point across. 792 000 at last count.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by demented

Geez people, if we're going to play the numbers game at least get them right. Sky+ HD numbers are a lot higher than 600,000 as people very well know and this is the nth time people have quoted old figures (perhaps deliberately) to get their point across. 792 000 at last count.

I just quoted the figures from wikipedia as it's the easiest way to get them. If you have more up to date figures with a source go update the page so then I won't have to quote the low figures! I even rounded them up so was highballing the figures I had.

Even if they had 900,000 HD subscribers (they don't) that's still only 10% and the point still stands, more people care about VOD than HD.

[mentalis]

Do the last quarter figures include the latest HD offer from Sky, though? I know of at least one person who has switched this quarter because of that.

Although technically I am still a TV customer as I have the free TV with the telephone, so probably won't be counted as leaving.

[sherer]

Originally Posted by TheDon

I just quoted the figures from wikipedia as it's the easiest way to get them. If you have more up to date figures with a source go update the page so then I won't have to quote the low figures! I even rounded them up so was highballing the figures I had.

Even if they had 900,000 HD subscribers (they don't) that's still only 10% and the point still stands, more people care about VOD than HD.

the latest figures from Sky are in this thread here based on their last results.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/11...on-thread.html

It's about 8.4% take up but the total number of V+ and Sky HD users is still only about 1.5 million plus however many are on freesat which shows that the take up isn't that great for HD at the moment

Originally Posted by sherer

the total number of V+ and Sky HD users is still only about 1.5 million plus however many are on freesat which shows that the take up isn't that great for HD at the moment

Freesat is growing fast - up to Christmas they sold about 200,000 units, with 50% of customers polled saying they bought it primarily for HD. That means you can safely conclude that there were at least 100,000 Freesat HD boxes in use by the end of 2008. There are in all likelihood more than that, as it's not going to be just those whose primary interest was HD that bought an HD box.

Not bad, considering the service only launced in May.

[Guy T]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Hi Andy, I don't know wether you know, but 2010 is seven months away, and there is still no gurrantee that we will get them, that is the reason why so many VM subs are going over to Sky, as VM cannot gurrantee the channels.

We have been hearing talk about this for months, but nothing is happening, VM don't even put out leaflets saying when this is likely to happen, l get leaflets offering deals, but nothing else.

2010 is 9 months away on my calendar

[bayards]

...ah but when you have a Tardis. BTW Dr Who special is HD this Easter on BBC HD...

H

[Media Boy UK]

This weeks update is now online - see post one.

[LiamTG]

Again, 2010 simply is not good enough.