O2 & Virgin Media To Merge

And here I was wondering if they might rebrand Virgin Media 1/2/3 as O2 1, O2 2 and O2 3.

O2 2? That’s waaaay better!

If you remember O2 and Three attempted a merger a few years ago, would that have been O5 ?

O1, O2, and O3 surely? [/tumbletower]

I wonder what happens with places like The O2 if the new company drops the O2 name? The Virgin Media Arena doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

It may be worth keeping both brands as standalone. Giffgaff is more known for being PAYG, while Virgin Mobile while still offering PAYG has concentrated on pay monthly/SIM only contracts.

As a mobile customer, I sincerely hope that VM isn't ditched for O2.

Maybe not, but that’s probably what it’d be called in that scenario.

They'd be foolish to drop either, BT and EE co-exist within the same corporate structure. If it came to one of the two though I'd expect O2 as it's the lead international brand of the partnership, to be the survivor.

It'd be renamed. Kingston Communications changed their name, twice, resulting in Hull City's stadium being rebranded as well. The first rebrand was to KC, so the stadium became the KC Stadium, which is what everyone always called it anyway! Later, the company became KCOM, so the stadium is now the KCOM Stadium.

O2 quit Ireland years ago, selling its Irish operations to 3 (hence why the O2 Dublin became the 3Arena, though it’s still the Point Depot to me!). The latest investor presentation seems to suggest VMI will now be grouped with UPC’s remaining Eastern European operations, which would seem to suggest it is now non-core to LG. Be interesting to see what happens to it given it has virtually nothing in common with those markets. I’d expect it to retain the VM brand in the short to medium term, it would be very difficult to go back to UPC (but, I suggest, the TV side will probably revert to TV3 if the carriage side does rebrand).

I think they’ll probably go for one brand and that brand being O2. There are many reasons why I think this will be the case, the first being owning the name at the moment they must be paying a lot to licence the brand, which probably made sense at one stage but they have a brand that is powerful enough in its own right now in O2. You only have to look at the messy TV3 rebrand in Ireland to show how inflexible the brand they actually licence is, I understand Ireland isn’t part of the deal but my point still stands. ‘O2 Sport’ works better than ‘Virgin Media Television Sport’ if they ever acquired any UK sports rights for example.

The other thing is being linked to the Virgin brand might be the best thing going forward with other Virgin branded businesses potentially struggling in the foreseeable future.

02 1?
That would make a good name for an OB company..