Another Cable Update
Well, it’s being reported by the Guardian newspaper that there is no hope for Cable customers who like shows like 24, Battlestar Galactica and Lost.
A Sky spokesman insisted Sky had not “pulled” its channels.
“We have an agreement that Virgin Media can distribute those channels until the end of the month,” he said.
“Virgin cannot distribute from March 1 if there is no agreement so, sadly for our customers, those channels would not be available.”
I’m glad my Sky dish will be installed the day before I lose Sky One, Two, Sky News and Sky Sports News from my cable lineup. However I don’t think it’s encouraging competition or consumer choice for these two companies not to reach an agreement for the benefit of their paying customers. I have no doubt Sky losing several million cable viewers will have an effect on their advertising revenues - at least until the Cable customers who will move to Sky do so. Cable has a decent channel line-up even without the Sky channels, but there are enough shows I enjoy watching that I’ll make the move.
Plus if in the future I want to get HDTV, Sky’s platform currently has a much wider range of programming available…
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I don’t see the point of paying extra for TV. Freeview offers more than enough plus the box I have allows deleting of channels so I can cycle through only the stuff I like.
I would be happy with the BBC channels and the Channel 4 ones.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6400847.stm
Been waiting for this for ages! Best news I’ve had all week.
Satellite is my only way of receiving TV basically, and that’s why I keep ranting on about Sky because they have a stranglehold on public service broadcasting, restrict choice and force subscriptions for everything.
…well it’s happened - 2 of my favourite channels have been pulled. At best, I’ll tune into another news channel, at worse, I’ll buy Season 3 of “Lost” on DVD when it comes out in a few months. Son of Murdoch-the-Merciless is a media dictator who literally thinks he rules the “SKY” [pardon the pun]. But there’s room in the universe for everyone. This just reinforces what I think of him. Competition is good, BT and British Gas once had the monopoly and are now tripping over themselves to reclaim millions of lost customers. I hope Richard Branson & His Virgin empire gives Murdoch a run for his money. Cable viewers will not be running to SKY to subscribe in their millions that’s for sure, in fact we won’t forget this in a hurry.
I think Virgin are negotiating for Lost rights separately anyway. Call me sad but I’m quite excited about Freesat actually (the link above). It opens up all sorts of possibilities away from the whims and restrictions of a private, proprietary operator. Sky have completely lost the plot at the moment I think with their ‘aggressive’ behaviour on several counts. Sound business strategy is one thing but they ought to learn that it’s a free market and their monopolistic attitude goes against the grain. They ought to be competing on channel line ups and customer service rather than overthrowing the competition by bullying tactics and gaining/keeping customers by lock-in strategies.