General : Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2013) Vol. 1.

[Henkesghost]

Originally Posted by Henkesghost

So a huge organisation like Virgin are using MediaBoy as a patsy? Think that's a bit too cloak and dagger fantasy tbh. Think we have to appreciate that this is a rumour thread not a fact thread. MediaBoy's rumours for the most part lead to nothing, because they are just that rumours. It's kind of him to do so despite his "sources" generally being wrong.

Originally Posted by denphone

Mmmmm Media Boy a patsy Media Boy a legend.

That's my point Den, it's hardly likely that as suggested by a previous poster that Virgin would be using some random bloke on a forum like this to feed misleading information to.

Quote went wrong

[Chad]

Originally Posted by Henkesghost

So a huge organisation like Virgin are using MediaBoy as a patsy? Think that's a bit too cloak and dagger fantasy tbh. Think we have to appreciate that this is a rumour thread not a fact thread. MediaBoy's rumours for the most part lead to nothing, because they are just that rumours. It's kind of him to do so despite his "sources" generally being wrong.

I don't think it's too far fetched. Last year the Coming Soon Thread had significant views:

Volume 1 - 325,820
Volume 2 - 168,700
Volume 3 - 266,950
Volume 4 - 267,698
Total - 1,029,168

This is the exact type of place to post information if you want to get it out and about. Over 1 million views, mainly from Virgin TV fanatics. Don't underestimate word of mouth. Remember when Virgin are launching new products they often approach bloggers such as Media Boy to do testing. Virgin know that way whatever the new product is likely to get good positive exposure via blogs and forums.

How often do we see posts from people here, Digital Spy, Virgin Community Forum and Facebook suggesting they've just been speaking with retentions, customer services or a sales rep at Virgin who confirmed X, Y and Z is in the pipeline. It then turns out to be false information. It happens all the time. Search the various threads on this forum, there's examples of this everywhere.

Media Boy isn't alone in being fed incorrect information, it's rife.

Oh and for anyone who thinks my views are biased because I have SKY, I only switched from Virgin to SKY about 2 weeks ago. Anyone who are regular visitors and reads my posts will know I've been raising this issue for months and months. I may have changed provider, but my opinions on Virgin have not changed.

[Henkesghost]

Yes but 1,020,000 of those views were between me, Den and MediaBoy

Again don't doubt for a second that virgin mislead their customers. Just don't think they target MediaBoy, think his sources through no fault of his own are just a bit rubbish most of the time.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by Henkesghost

Yes but 1,020,000 of those views were between me, Den and MediaBoy

Too true

[paultrademark]

Page views mean nothing, there is probably a very small amount of people who dont look at this thread multiple times per day.



Unless the mods can confirm that is individual users? And probably a lot of them are by spider bots.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Henkesghost

Yes but 1,020,000 of those views were between me, Den and MediaBoy

No no no as we have to remember those pesky little minions of the masters house have been frequenting this thread quite considerably lately and because we look after them so well it seems even more of them are checking this thread now.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by Chad

Why didn't Virgin Media nip it in the bud by making it clear the information going around simply wasn't true?

Because no business comments on rumours and speculation.

Imagine if they did. As soon as one rumour was quashed/confirmed, another would pop up, and eventually their entire plans are public.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by paultrademark

Page views mean nothing, there is probably a very small amount of people who dont look at this thread multiple times per day.



Unless the mods can confirm that is individual users? And probably a lot of them are by spider bots.

Page views mean nothing? It's the amount of hits the Coming Soon thread gets that pushes Cable Forum to the top of Google search time and time again when people are searching for news on channels coming soon.

I'm not suggesting that there is over 1 million unique vists to this thread each year. Clearly there will be thousands of repeat visitors. Over 2800 per day based on last years figures. Many of these visitors however will repeat what they see here on Facebook, Twitter, Virgins Community Forum etc... They will also share information from here with family and friends.

Do visits to this thread from non-registered members of the site get counted in the threads view figures? I was visiting this thread for about 2 years before I finally joined.

---------- Post added at 15:58 ---------- Previous post was at 15:47 ----------

Originally Posted by spiderplant

Because no business comments on rumours and speculation.

Imagine if they did. As soon as one rumour was quashed/confirmed, another would pop up, and eventually their entire plans are public.

I've seen people on here posting copies of e-mails they received from the office of Neil Berkett. I must admit I'm impressed how open and honest these e-mails are. People will ask the office of Mr. Berkett straight to the point questions about future channels, channel negotiations and rumours on the internet. They seem to get very straight to the point answers back, especially confirmation of what is true or not so accurate.

It's clear at the top of the tree Virgin are an engaging, open and honest company. I just don't think this trickles down to everyone at every level.

Maybe it's not deliberate. Does a lot of inaccurate rumours, gossip and speculation circle amoungst staff at Virgin? It's plausible people sharing inaccurate information actually believe what they are saying is true due what they hear in the office day in, day out.

[paultrademark]

Originally Posted by Chad

Page views mean nothing? It's the amount of hits the Coming Soon thread gets that pushes Cable Forum to the top of Google search time and time again when people are searching for news on channels coming soon.

I'm not suggesting that there is over 1 million unique vists to this thread each year. Clearly there will be thousands of repeat visitors. Over 2800 per day based on last years figures. Many of these visitors however will repeat what they see here on Facebook, Twitter, Virgins Community Forum etc... They will also share information from here with family and friends.

Do visits to this thread from non-registered members of the site get counted in the threads view figures? I was visiting this thread for about 2 years before I finally joined.

Type into google "virgin media new channels"

CF isn't top, it's well down the page. Yes it probably means a lot to the owners of CF for advertising, but for us as members or to suggest VM use it as mentioned is just not correct.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by paultrademark

Type into google "virgin media new channels". CF isn't top, it's well down the page.

Very true. It all depends what phrase the person searches. Ironically the term "Virgin Media new channels" brings up VMHD Blogspot as number 1 then Mediaboy Blog as number 2. Both blogs pretty much contain the same news and info that gets posted in this very thread.

Originally Posted by paultrademark

Yes it probably means a lot to the owners of CF for advertising, but for us as members or to suggest VM use it as mentioned is just not correct.

Is that just your opinion or can it be proved? You can't just say something isn't correct without backing it up.

[paultrademark]

Originally Posted by Chad

Is that just your opinion or can it be proved? You can't just say something isn't correct without backing it up.

No, it's just my opinion as I don't think that could be proven either way unless a senior VM employee came out and said as much.. and that's not likely to happen.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by paultrademark

No, it's just my opinion as I don't think that could be proven either way unless a senior VM employee came out and said as much.. and that's not likely to happen.

Totally agree. We will never know for sure. People can make up their own minds. Personally, I don't know what to believe anymore

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Chad

I agree that anyone can pose as anyone online. It's easily done. Has anyone proven the person feeding information to Media Boy wasn't employed by Virgin? It would be interesting to see how Media Boy verifies his sources as he beleived 100% what he was being told, and that the person was employed by Virgin. I'm sure when the list of channels launching in October was published, which included ITV2 HD etc..., the news spread from Media Boys blog and here to Digital Spy, Virgin Community Forum, Facebook, Twitter and various other sources. Virgin Media knew this information was out in the domain as customers where asking them about the rumours. Why didn't Virgin Media nip it in the bud by making it clear the information going around simply wasn't true?
.

One way might be to check if they have a VM staff email address.

Originally Posted by Media Boy

It was not an 'big build up' my Insider only confirm the names to me just over two weeks ago. But they also says 'Do not use until January 29th'.

I was just given everyone the head up on the renumbering but not making it easy for everyone to work out on they own.

I was only given the go-ahead yesterday due to the Universal Channel ad on the Channel renumbering.

However you look at it, 3 channels moving up the EPG isn't big news. The early announcement gave no indication of the relatively small scale of the change. You even held a poll asking members for their opinions on which genres would be moving. To me, this does seem like a "big build up".

It wouldn't really matter very much if members had worked it out for themselves. It's not really difficult to look at the EPG and notice a gap after a channel which could possibly be filled with sister channels from the same content provider.

That said, you are an enthusiast, so any news is big news. I wasn't trying to criticise you for giving the heads up, that sort of information can be helpful. Perhaps it would be even more helpful if you gave some indication of the scale of the change in future announcements.

---------- Post added at 18:21 ---------- Previous post was at 18:16 ----------

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

One way might be to check if they have a VM staff email address.

Although VM staff might not want to be seen (by their employer) to be giving out leads from their staff email addresses.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by jj20x

That said, you are an enthusiast, so any news is big news.

I am the exact same when it comes to Boxnation, and the Boxnation thread I started over a year ago.