US Cable Giant Liberty Global buys Virgin Media

[Arthurgray50@blu]

IF, the BT Sports is not on VM by Saturday, l will be switching to Sky. VM cannot treat there customers with contempt. Yes, they might be holding out due to the stock exchange etc.

What they should be doing is trying to keep customers by telling them something.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

IF, the BT Sports is not on VM by Saturday, l will be switching to Sky. VM cannot treat there customers with contempt. Yes, they might be holding out due to the stock exchange etc.

What they should be doing is trying to keep customers by telling them something.

But Arthur did you not go to Sky before and then quickly came back to Virgin.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

IF, the BT Sports is not on VM by Saturday, l will be switching to Sky. VM cannot treat there customers with contempt. Yes, they might be holding out due to the stock exchange etc.

What they should be doing is trying to keep customers by telling them something.

VM have been telling customers something. That they are in talks with BT about the channel.

[denphone]

All3Media sold to Discovery and Liberty Global in deal worth £500m.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ty-global-deal

Skins and Midsomer Murders maker All3Media has been sold to US media giants Discovery and Liberty Global in a deal thought to be worth more than £500m.


Discovery Communications, which last month pulled out of the Channel 5 auction, and Virgin Media-owner Liberty Global will be joint owners of All3Media.


The sale price is significantly less than the £750m-plus that All3Media had originally sought when it went up for sale in 2011.

[1andrew1]

Interesting! The other day I read a report on LG's results that included a quote saying they would not rule out a return to content if they found a suitable partner. They were obviously close to completing this deal when they said that and no doubt would have hoped to eb able to announce it along with their results.

[Kushan]

Makes sense, I think content is key these days. Virgin TV doesn't have a huge amount of draw to it, content-wise, compared to Sky or netflix (And by that, I mean there's not much EXCLUSIVE content on the platform). Things like Game of Thrones, House of Cards, etc. are genuine draws for customers. Having some standout, genuinely great TV that you can only get on Virgin could be a big selling point - but then again, that would imply them getting their own channels again, I suppose.

[1andrew1]

Bit more news on the deal from Sky News:

Sky News The transaction, which is expected to be announced on Friday, will see All3Media owned by a new joint venture being established by the two US-listed media groups.
Discovery and Liberty Global, which owns Virgin Media, a competitor to Sky News' owner BSkyB, are understood to be drawing up plans for further takeovers to create an independent global content platform.

http://news.sky.com/story/1257560/di...-for-all3media

[Sirius]

There is going to be interesting times ahead. If LG starts down the content road how long before Sky starts to throw its teddy out of the pram again

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Sirius

There is going to be interesting times ahead. If LG starts down the content road how long before Sky starts to throw its teddy out of the pram again

Indeed Sirius as we all know from previous scenarios when other companies have parked their tanks on Sky's lawn Sky has reacted by getting very stroppy as they don't like their own medicine too much.

PS These are unbiased comments as to not upset certain posters.

[Media Boy UK]

Full list of content own by All 3 Media now listed on my blog.

http://mediaboyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2...discovery.html

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by Media Boy

Full list of content own by All 3 Media now listed on my blog.

http://mediaboyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2...discovery.html

Didn't know you had a blog! Subscribed.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by denphone

PS These are unbiased comments as to not upset certain posters.

Too late

[Ignitionnet]

BT have gotten into content, Sky have gotten into infrastructure, so zero room for complaint from anyone.

Not that they won't try of course.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Sirius

There is going to be interesting times ahead. If LG starts down the content road how long before Sky starts to throw its teddy out of the pram again

Sky operates as a business so does whatever is in its best interests, whether we like it or not.
In other news, whilst some politicians dream of taking us out of Europe, it looks like BSkyB is dreaming of entering Europe.
"Rupert Murdoch is exploring using his minority stake in BSkyB to combine his Sky-branded businesses in the UK, Italy and Germany into a pan-European pay-television platform, according to people familiar with the situation."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8fb5d8d8-d...#axzz31JGa4YVo
(Registration required)

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Media Boy

Full list of content own by All 3 Media now listed on my blog.

http://mediaboyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2...discovery.html

Very interesting.

Liberty may not have premiership or premium films rights at the moment, yet despite what they've said in the recent past, Liberty/VM are still very much in the content game.

I expect a slew of Liberty owned channels at some point once they have enough stuff to put on them. They already aleady have Eurosport and Discovery, so I'd expect a general entertainment channel at some point at the very least.

---------- Post added at 20:28 ---------- Previous post was at 20:02 ----------

Originally Posted by Sirius

There is going to be interesting times ahead. If LG starts down the content road how long before Sky starts to throw its teddy out of the pram again

Liberty aka John Malone has always been in the content business. What we have seen is getting rid of stuff they don't control ie the UKTV and chellomedia business' and gaining more control of stuff they already have ie Discovery and using that as a vehicle to take control of more things like Eurosport.

---------- Post added at 20:35 ---------- Previous post was at 20:28 ----------

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Sky operates as a business so does whatever is in its best interests, whether we like it or not.
In other news, whilst some politicians dream of taking us out of Europe, it looks like BSkyB is dreaming of entering Europe.

Murdoch has always been involved in Europe. What the merger of the 3 Sky companies is about is to allow Murdoch to gain full control of BSkyB. He already controls the German and Italian Sky companies and has tried to regain full control of BskyB before,but things like phone hacking got in the way.... If he can merge the 3 companies together that gives him back control of BskyB, something he's always wanted after he merged his Sky company with BSB 20 years ago.