Faze TV

[Rillington]

The launch of Faze TV has been confirmed as 1 September and they have said that they will only be launching on the Sky platform. I would like to subscribe to this channel but am not allowed Sky where I live and am forced to have ntl.

I had a look at their website and it was worded in a way which lead me to believe that ntl have refused this channel carriage, quoting from their site "If you are a Telewest or NTL customer you will need to lobby your cable operator to convince them to carry us in the future. They only listen to the people who shout loudest."

It has always been a considered opinion of mine that ntl has gone out of its way not to carry gay channels but this is a subscription service which will NOT be porn but will instead be a fully-fledged lifestyle and entertainment channel which ntl cannot argue is porn, plus with it being a subscription service, the homophobes cannot say that it can be accessed by anybody.

I recall ntl claiming on this forum that they had spoken to gay channel providers in the past but said on this forum "they did not want to be on cable at thie time" but this was probably before Faze TV was a reality so I think the question is worth asking again, given that this channel will genuinely be offering something which no other station is to provide plus it will bring revenue into ntl from the subscriptions which they can charge for Faze TV. Therefore, given that plenty of ntl employees watch this forum, can anyone advise me as to whether ntl is going to carry Faze TV and, if not, then why not.

[andygrif]

It's more down to the broadcaster rather than ntl...if they don't want to be on cable (mostly becuase cable offers poor value for money per potential viewer than Sky), that's down to them.

Why don't you lobby Faze TV instead? And don't be so paranoid

[Rillington]

I intend to do exactly that and ask them.

[Raistlin]

Originally Posted by Rillington

I had a look at their website and it was worded in a way which lead me to believe that ntl have refused this channel carriage, quoting from their site "If you are a Telewest or NTL customer you will need to lobby your cable operator to convince them to carry us in the future. They only listen to the people who shout loudest."

Doesn't seem to be much point in lobbying Faze if they're asking you to lobby NTL

[Tristan]

But every channel in the history of all things ever, bar those from the big terrestrial broadcasters, has launched on satellite (and I'm willing to bet it is FTA satellite rather than Sky) before cable.

A channel has to pay to be broadcast on satellite -- this money doesn't go to Sky Digital, but to the company who run the satellite (Astra or Eutelsat in Europe), and to the company who provide the uplink facilities (both Sky and NTL can do this, amongst others). If the channel wants to appear on Sky Digital, then they must pay a fee (£50k pa from memory) for an EPG number.

That's what it takes to just get a channel to get broadcast "free to air". In this model, all revenue for the channel comes from advertising. If a channel proves popular, then Sky may take an interest in including them in one of their channel packages. In this case, the channel is encrypted, and only viewers subscribing to the appropriate package can see it. Sky will pay the channel a fee, based on what package it will appear in and how popular it is likely to be. The position Sky aim to be in is that an addition to one of their packages will bring in more new subs than it costs them. (For the channel, the Sky payment has to be balanced against a potential reduction in viewers and thus advertising revenue.)

With cable, things are a little more complicated, as there is no concept of "free to air". It's all down to negotiation. On the one hand, adding new channels costs NTL money (hardware, maintenance, manpower), and so they are within their rights to charge a carriage fee. This is the equivalent of the sat-space and uplink fees on satellite. Conversely however, adding popular channels to higher packages is likely to increase the take-up, giving the channels more power. So in the case of, for example, shopping channels, the money goes all one way, as they bring no benefit to NTL's viewers. On the other hand, I would expect that NTL pay Nickelodeon for their channels, as they would lose many family pack subscribers if they dropped them.


All of which is a bit boring, but I hope it goes some way to explaining why minority channels have such a hard time getting carriage on cable, and why everything always launches on Sky first.

[chandleo]

I emailed ntl regarding faze tv, as I would like to receive it when it launches and considering its going to be a premium channel i'm surprised they wouldn't want the extra revenue considering some of their financial problems, anyway heres the response i got:

Thank you for your email.

Due to the security procedures we have in place at ntl:, in compliance with the Data Protection Act, we cannot accept any change of information regarding customerââ‚à ƒâ€šÃ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s personal or account details via e-mail.

In order to maintain security we ask our customers to call us on 0800 052 2000 or 0044 1256 751 045 if calling from outside the UK and we can then proceed with the relevant changes.

Our customer service team will be more than happy to explain or resolve any billing queries or make changes to your account or package and provide details once the relevant checks have been passed.

Unfortunately at the moment we have no news of this channel being added to our packages although we are constantly in negotiations to bring new content to our customers.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused but as I hope you will appreciate these precautions are for your security.

I hope this will answer your queries, should you have any further questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Kind regards

don't even know what the first bit is about, didn't even ask to make any changes to my account!

[andygrif]

Customer Service people always seem to be the last but one to know when a new channel is being added anyway...the first para is funny though!

[Rillington]

Thank you for posting the reply Chandelo. Might be worth emailing ntl myself, using the link which Faze gives out on its website, as I will do to Faze TV at some point.