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BSkyB Takeover, Challenge and Virgin 1 to close? (June 2010)

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BR
Brekkie
Inspector Sands posted:
Stuart posted:
Virgin will have wanted to make sure that they got a decent guarantee about access to channels; otherwise they would've left themselves at quite a disadvantage - having no channels of their own with which to bargain in any future carriage negotiations.

Do you really think their channels really gave them much clout when it came to regular carriage negotiations? Living, Challenge, Bravo and Virgin1 vs Sky Sports, Sky One, Sky News and Sky Movies.....? Laughing


It's more clout than they'll have next time negotiations come around. Their bargaining position will be zero next time Sky make extortionate demands to carry their channels.
SE
Square Eyes Founding member
VM don't need their rather weak line up of linear channels.

Much better to continue to build up their on-demand content, as they have been with the likes of Warner TV and HBO.
GE
thegeek Founding member
Incidentally, I think there's been a little bit of confusion here about the deal that's been done. Sky have bought Virgin Media TV - formerly Flextech, the company that owns and operates Living, Bravo, Challenge, etc. It's a subsidiary of Virgin Media, which is the cable platform, broadband and telephony provider. As part of the deal, Virgin Media have signed a carriage deal for Sky's channels and programming.

UKTV used to be a joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Flextech, but it seems that at some point the ownership structure changed, and it now appears to be BBC Worldwide and Virgin Media, rather than Virgin Media TV.
PE
Pete Founding member
The BBC have first refusal on any changes to UKTV iirc. That's why even though ntl took over Telewest in the sense of it was their board members who made up the most of the new board, the actual transaction was done as Telewest buying ntl because Teleweast owned Flexitech and therefore it wouldn't risk UKTV.
DA
David
RR posted:
What's more, Virgin Media will be able to deliver some of these, e.g. Football First, better than Sky with their Video on Demand services.


Maybe from a technical point of view but I wonder if the contract would let them offer a better red button service than Sky do. Will Sky give Virgin access to their red button video and data streams and allow Virgin to write their own app in whatever way they wish or will Sky force them to write an app that resembles the Sky app as closely as possible or will Sky hire their own programmers to write the cable apps for their channels?
WP
WillPS
thegeek posted:
Incidentally, I think there's been a little bit of confusion here about the deal that's been done. Sky have bought Virgin Media TV - formerly Flextech, the company that owns and operates Living, Bravo, Challenge, etc. It's a subsidiary of Virgin Media, which is the cable platform, broadband and telephony provider. As part of the deal, Virgin Media have signed a carriage deal for Sky's channels and programming.

UKTV used to be a joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Flextech, but it seems that at some point the ownership structure changed, and it now appears to be BBC Worldwide and Virgin Media, rather than Virgin Media TV.


I'd imagine there is a holding company for former Flextech- wholly owned channels which has been sold, leaving VM, VMtv (as a shell) and their half of UKTV

18 days later

:-(
A former member
Challenge TV is not CLOSING DOWN, and the forum are staying open and the challenge tv guru is also back

20 days later

NW
nwtv2003
The sale of channels has been completed, Virgin Media Television now renamed Living TV Group...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/13/bskyb-virginmedia

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