TiVo : Poor choice of Channels

[Dave42]

Originally Posted by passingbat

Many people anticipated that Sky would launch a new channel after the sale. Such potential channels should have been covered in the sale agreement.

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VM were handing over more than just the content of the channels. They were giving Sky the chance to be the only service provider with content. Sky's only competitor that was both a service and content provider would be gone. That was worth a lot.

I think VM made a mistake by selling the channels; they should have kept them and built up the content. VM's plan was to rely on fast fibre BB, which was fine when they were the only ones providing it. But they didn't look ahead to when other providers would also have fast fibre BB and to the time now, where content is king.

totally disagree with bold bit we have even less channels if VM didn't sell the channels to sky no sky HD at all and no red button there be lot more people would moaning and lots people would have moved to sky from VM for the sky HD if we never got it and please remember VM billons of debt they cant compete with sky for content sky would always win on that so did right thing selling

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by passingbat

Future Sky channels (such as Atlantic) should have been covered in the negotiations when VM sold all their channels to Sky. The VM negotiating team failed to see or did see, but didn't cover, what most other people knew was likely to happen.

How could they have been so short sighted?

It's not about being short sighted. Sky are sneaky.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Stephen

It's not about being short sighted. Sky are sneaky.

Summed up perfectly as we all know Sky's track record on a good many things and even those old diehards at times can't defend a lot of Sky's tactics.

[andy_m]

Virgin knew full will that infinity was coming when it sold off the living group of channels. As has already been said, Virgin are in debt, and those channels have certainly been improved by new and wealthier ownership, and in addition we actually got quite a lot for them. Getting rid of something that costs money when you haven't got any and being able to present yourself as serious about hd and interactive services at the same time? Thats pretty good work afaic.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by Stephen

It's not about being short sighted. Sky are sneaky.

Fancy , a firm not letting its main competitor in on its future plans.

What is the world coming to , they'll be telling us their trying to improve profits next.

Clearly you have never had to deal with Sky. Why do you think Ofcom have to be involved so much?

Originally Posted by passingbat

Many people anticipated that Sky would launch a new channel after the sale. Such potential channels should have been covered in the sale agreement.

---------- Post added at 22:32 ---------- Previous post was at 22:17 ----------



VM were handing over more than just the content of the channels. They were giving Sky the chance to be the only service provider with content. Sky's only competitor that was both a service and content provider would be gone. That was worth a lot.

I think VM made a mistake by selling the channels; they should have kept them and built up the content. VM's plan was to rely on fast fibre BB, which was fine when they were the only ones providing it. But they didn't look ahead to when other providers would also have fast fibre BB and to the time now, where content is king.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by passingbat

Virgin got rid of a lot of junk channels to Sky in my view And we got HD in return

Originally Posted by passingbat

I think VM made a mistake by selling the channels; they should have kept them and built up the content.

So why the change of tune?

[denphone]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Fancy , a firm not letting its main competitor in on its future plans.

What is the world coming to , they'll be telling us their trying to improve profits next.

And thy loyal servant will go to the end of the world to support thy master.

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Fancy , a firm not letting its main competitor in on its future plans.

What is the world coming to , they'll be telling us their trying to improve profits next.

Sorry Den this is o so true. Anyone would think that you and others believe that Sky are in business to help other companies take away their customers.

Sky are in it to get as much for their shareholders as they can,not to help Virgin ,B.T or any other company. Certainly not to help them increase their customer base . Den wake up and smell the coffee . So the only time Virgin will get anything from Sky is when it increases the bottom line overall. We have to live with the crumbs from the table -or pull up a chair & join the feast not something I actively plan to do but never say never

[Henkesghost]

Originally Posted by denphone

And thy loyal servant will go to the end of the world to support thy master.

That's cos MM's master treats him well Den, feeding him the freshest finest cuts, whereas ours is a neglectful mean master who tosses us a bit of scrag end once every blue moon

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Itshim

Sorry Den this is o so true. Anyone would think that you and others believe that Sky are in business to help other companies take away their customers.

Sky are in it to get as much for their shareholders as they can,not to help Virgin ,B.T or any other company. Certainly not to help them increase their customer base . Den wake up and smell the coffee . So the only time Virgin will get anything from Sky is when it increases the bottom line overall. We have to live with the crumbs from the table -or pull up a chair & join the feast not something I actively plan to do but never say never

Oh Itshim its so nice to hear such fine eloquent words this morning from you this morning but in the case of Sky please tell me what they have actually got which is actually better then what Virgin have got and apart from having a few more itsy bitsy channels thats about it frankly as Virgin stand shoulders above them on a good many other things and as the old cat advert goes 9 out of 10 cats prefer only the best and in this case and many others thats certainly not Sky.

---------- Post added at 09:15 ---------- Previous post was at 09:14 ----------

Originally Posted by Henkesghost

That's cos MM's master treats him well Den, feeding him the freshest finest cuts, whereas ours is a neglectful mean master who tosses us a bit of scrag end once every blue moon

l prefer fillet rather then rump my dear chap.

[Henkesghost]

Originally Posted by denphone

Oh Itshim its so nice to hear such fine eloquent words this morning from you this morning but in the case of Sky please tell me what they have actually got which is actually better then what Virgin have got and apart from having a few more itsy bitsy channels thats about it frankly as Virgin stand shoulders above them on a good many other things and as the old cat advert goes 9 out of 10 cats prefer only the best and in this case and many others thats certainly not Sky.

---------- Post added at 09:15 ---------- Previous post was at 09:14 ----------




l prefer fillet rather then rump my dear chap.

Dirty boy!

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

So why the change of tune?

Originally Posted by passingbat
Virgin got rid of a lot of junk channels to Sky in my view And we got HD in return

Can you remind me where and when I posted that SP. I think at one time I did hold that view, but at the same time I also had an uneasy feeling about the channel sale. I now think the uneasy feeling was correct, and the sale was a mistake. It's easy to be seduced and elated by a short term gain, which the content we got from Sky was, but forget or misunderstand the long term consequences of the action.

Sky have the content for now, however the world changes very quickly in this space and the future may be a world where content providers choose to sell direct to customers via the internet, Tivo is perfect to deliver content in this way. Sky are concerned search BSKYB on the net and click news, they are talking about the threat from BT, if they lose the premiere league and movies they have nothing as they don't own any infrastructure. Virgin do and thats a massive assett.

Who knows what will happen, however from a share price perspective Sky where at £7.60 in Nov last year and are now £7.50, whereas VM were at £13 and are now nearly £20, so clearly the speculators sniff that something is brewing

Originally Posted by passingbat

Can you remind me where and when I posted that SP. I think at one time I did hold that view, but at the same time I also had an uneasy feeling about the channel sale. I now think the uneasy feeling was correct, and the sale was a mistake. It's easy to be seduced and elated by a short term gain, which the content we got from Sky was, but forget or misunderstand the long term consequences of the action.

[tweetiepooh]

I am not in the content division and don't have known contact with any negotiating team members but I can imagine that future Sky changes were considered but may have been too costly to include. Can you really image any company allowing a clause that they have to provide anything new they think of in the original price.

On the non-Sky owned content, maybe the providers are locked in to Sky (or partially so) and at some future date the extra content will become available to other providers.