General : Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

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That's a good saving on your Virgin package

Most of it was Sky Sports discount.

[jfman]

Of course if Virgin are paying Sky more but subsidising you the price of Sky Sports has still gone up.

[Richc1977]

Eleven Sports poised for first UK carriage deal with Virgin Media, can't access full article but seems to confirm what we have seen from the testing

https://www.sportcal.com/News/Search/122656

[Dave42]

Originally Posted by Richc1977

Eleven Sports poised for first UK carriage deal with Virgin Media, can't access full article but seems to confirm what we have seen from the testing

https://www.sportcal.com/News/Search/122656

good news

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Richc1977

Eleven Sports poised for first UK carriage deal with Virgin Media, can't access full article but seems to confirm what we have seen from the testing

https://www.sportcal.com/News/Search/122656

Well if that is the case that is good news.

[TonyStormchaser]

Hey everyone, sorry my first post is so long but this is the full article

Eleven Sports is poised to sign off on its first carriage deal for its channels in the UK in an agreement with Virgin Media, the digital television and telecoms provider.

Having launched its over-the-top subscription service in the UK and Ireland in August, Eleven Sports has been in negotiations with the likes of BT, Sky and Virgin about wholesale agreements.

A deal with Virgin is set to be the first to be announced and the final technical details are currently being settled.

The addition of Eleven Sports 1 HD and Eleven Sports 2 HD on Virgin Media could help to apply some pressure on BT and Sky, as the Aser-owned broadcaster continues talks with the pay-TV duo.

Coverage of LaLiga and Serie A represent the two flagship rights agreements for a broadcaster that went live in the UK with coverage of golf’s US PGA Championship and has since added the LPGA tour to its portfolio. Rights to the Netherlands’ Eredivisie and Sweden’s Allsvenskan were also acquired from IMG, the agency that has taken a small stake in the broadcaster’s UK and Ireland operation.

Rights to mixed martial arts’ UFC have also been acquired from 2019 in a long-term deal.

Virgin Media told Sportcal today that it has “had discussions with Eleven Sports but no deal has been agreed.”

Speaking earlier this month on the subject of the lengthy carriage negotiations, one pay-TV operator told the Telegraph: “We can just make them sweat. If we’re not losing many customers because we don’t have that content, then they will need to come to us with a good price. If they don’t we can just pick up rights when they go bust.”

In response, Marc Watson, Eleven Sports’ executive chairman and group chief executive, said: “We don’t need to do those deals but we would like to because we think it makes sense for customers and at the end of the day it is the customer that is the boss.”

On Eleven Sports’ positioning, he remarked: “In the UK what we see is a gap for an independent premium sports service because there isn’t one.

“There’s one tethered to BT, there’s one tethered to Sky and both of them are very premium, meaning that they’re quite expensive. There’s a gap for an independent player making the service available to everybody at an affordable price.”

Sky and BT’s premium sports channels are already available on the Virgin Media platform (on a subscription basis) but the likes of Eurosport 1, Eurosport 2, At The Races and FreeSports are within the basic-tier package.

Eleven Sports 1 houses the broadcaster’s soccer content, whereas Eleven Sports 2 has been marketed as offering “live premium fight sports, eSports and extreme sports for dedicated fans, plus football overspill from Eleven Sports 1.”

The OTT service has been priced at £5.99 ($7.78) per month in the UK and €6.99 ($8) per month in Ireland.

The broadcaster recently sparked controversy among soccer authorities by streaming live coverage of LaLiga during the UK’s Saturday afternoon blackout window (of between 2.45pm and 5.15pm). Eleven has since relented, citing “respect for the wishes of our partners,” and following “intense pressure from stakeholders within the football establishment.”

Sportcal

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by Richc1977

Eleven Sports poised for first UK carriage deal with Virgin Media, can't access full article but seems to confirm what we have seen from the testing

https://www.sportcal.com/News/Search/122656

Good news lets hope it arrives for El classico.

[Richc1977]

Thanks Tony

Reading that you can see why SKY and BT are happy to not do a deal in the hope they go bust and pick up rights on the cheap.

However knowledge of this provides a great opportunity for Virgin to strike a really good deal and given their recent track record (i.e. UK TV) I suspect they will get one too.

[jfman]

Hopefully Virgin drive the price right down. Eleven are obviously in a distressed position, struggling to monetise the rights they hold.

A new poster trying to justify 75p per XL subscriber per month to me screams Eleven posting to try and steer negotiations. Considering much of the content was viewed by the small thousands of viewers while on much larger platforms I’m not sure it justifies £15m a year.

BT bring to the table Premiership rights and Champions League rights worth hundreds of millions per year to the table and content viewed by millions.

[Media Boy UK]

Originally Posted by Richc1977

Eleven Sports poised for first UK carriage deal with Virgin Media, can't access full article but seems to confirm what we have seen from the testing

https://www.sportcal.com/News/Search/122656

To stop all the PM - Media Boy HQ has NOT been given any info about Eleven Sports from Media Boy Sources.

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Radio Times has reveal that from Saturday:

•Sky Cinema Hits will be known as Sky Cinema Spooky until November 1st.

[jfman]

Interestingly, or not, the tests are now hidden. So no EPG data or channel name are being broadcast. Hopefully Eleven haven’t bit off more than they can chew in negotiations. After this weekend the value of their limited and niche content (to Virgin) drops again until next season.

[Media Boy UK]

http://en.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php...&sec=0&lang=en

Three unknown channels has been found called Project1, Project2 and Project3 showing Sky Sports Golf, Challenge and Pick and are broadcasting in MPEG4.

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Originally Posted by jfman

Interestingly, or not, the tests are now hidden. So no EPG data or channel name are being broadcast. Hopefully Eleven haven’t bit off more than they can chew in negotiations. After this weekend the value of their limited and niche content (to Virgin) drops again until next season.

We have been on digitalbitrate and can confirmed that Eleven Sports testing names of Foggy1 and Foggy2 is still on that web site but the EPG data now says "Coming Soon - This channel is coming soon".

http://en.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php...&sec=0&lang=en

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Someone at Virgin must love The Last of the Summer Wine when they pick the names for the Eleven Sports tests.

[jfman]

http://en.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php...&sec=0&lang=en

They aren’t showing in the graphs, and have gone red on the main index page which is usually a channel has ceased broadcasting (it’s in the historic scans, but not the most recent).

The maximum date rate for the multiplex in the graphs isn’t at the max (shown by a flat line) pointing towards the tests being hidden.

Foggy1 hasn’t shown up since the 22nd as shown by “last updated on...”.

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The project channels, again removed, I would imagine were just duplicates to test the MPEG4 compression rates alongside broadcast MPEG4 channels before deciding on an acceptable bitrate.

[Media Boy UK]

Originally Posted by jfman

http://en.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php...&sec=0&lang=en

They aren’t showing in the graphs, and have gone red on the main index page which is usually a channel has ceased broadcasting (it’s in the historic scans, but not the most recent).

The maximum date rate for the multiplex in the graphs isn’t at the max (shown by a flat line) pointing towards the tests being hidden.

Foggy1 hasn’t shown up since the 22nd as shown by “last updated on...”.

---------- Post added at 19:11 ---------- Previous post was at 18:50 ----------

The project channels, again removed, I would imagine were just duplicates to test the MPEG4 compression rates alongside broadcast MPEG4 channels before deciding on an acceptable bitrate.

We are going to stop using that web site. We was thinking maybe Virgin Media was testing them for Sky Sports Racing HD, Sky One +1 and Pick +1.

[jfman]

In fairness there nothing wrong with that site it just dumps data. It’s when people start guessing...