Mass Media & Technology

O2 & Virgin Media To Merge

(May 2020)

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PF
PFML84
Mobile company O2 and broadband and TV company Virgin Media are to merge, creating one of the UK's largest entertainment and telecoms firms and, they hope, a major rival to BT.

Full article on BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52570593

Seeing as the last attempt to merge O2 and 3 was blocked, will this make it past the regulator?
Will they keep the two names or will O2 become Virgin Mobile, as Virgin is the bigger and more valuable company?
JA
JAS84
Virgin Media is the bigger company, but O2 is the bigger mobile operator, it's the cable TV business that makes Virgin Media worth more.

I can see them keeping both names. EE didn't rebrand as BT Mobile. They did recently dual-brand the shops and I can see O2/VM doing the same.
NW
nwtv2003
It might be interesting to see if Virgin Mobile will go through with its planned change of MVNO from EE to Vodafone as a result of this merger. I can't see there being any hurdles to this merger, as O2 doesn't have a basic Broadband/Home Phone/Pay TV service and whilst Virgin Mobile is a popular network, I don't think it's anywhere near the size O2, nor Three who they were originally going to merge with.

It;'ll be interesting to see if one of the brands gets ditched, if not both. I think it's more likely that O2 brand will be ditched given how much Liberty Global has invested in the Virgin Media brand, but only time will tell this ultimately.

Ireland will be an interesting case as both O2 and Virgin Media operate in the Republic in a similar manner to the UK, or does this merger not effect the operations in the Republic?
TV
TVVT
I agree with JAS84 that I think that they will keep the O2 name.

Being the 2nd largest mobile provider in the UK (EE is No. 1), I don’t see why they would rename it. The tweet said it would be a 50/50 ownership of the operations so it would be unfair on the part of Telefónica to rename it.

There is a video explaining the merger on Telefónica’s Twitter, which can be seen below.




Also what would this mean for the Disney+ partnership? With O2 merging with the rival company to the D+ TV partners, Sky, I doubt the partnership will stay for long. Also, I bet that Sky Mobile, which piggybacks on O2's mobile network will hop to Vodafone or Three.
Last edited by TVVT on 9 November 2020 8:04am - 2 times in total
JO
Jon
nwtv2003 posted:

Ireland will be an interesting case as both O2 and Virgin Media operate in the Republic in a similar manner to the UK, or does this merger not effect the operations in the Republic?

The O2 mobile network was taken over by 3 a few years ago in the republic.
NW
nwtv2003
TVVT posted:
I agree with JAS84 that I think that they will keep the O2 name. Being the 2nd most popular mobile provider (only to EE), I don’t see why they would rename it. I’m pretty sure the Tweet said it would be a 50/50 ownership of the operations so it would be unfair on Telefónica’s part to call it Virgin Mobile.

There is a video explaining the merger on Telefónica’s Twitter, I tried uploading it but failed. If someone else could I’d appreciate it.





It seems business as usual for now, as well as the new company being a joint venture.
LL
London Lite Founding member
nwtv2003 posted:
It might be interesting to see if Virgin Mobile will go through with its planned change of MVNO from EE to Vodafone as a result of this merger. I can't see there being any hurdles to this merger, as O2 doesn't have a basic Broadband/Home Phone/Pay TV service and whilst Virgin Mobile is a popular network, I don't think it's anywhere near the size O2, nor Three who they were originally going to merge with.


Virgin Mobile's UK business has over 3m subscribers.
MU
Mute
nwtv2003 posted:

Ireland will be an interesting case as both O2 and Virgin Media operate in the Republic in a similar manner to the UK, or does this merger not effect the operations in the Republic?


I believe that Ireland isn't included in the deal. Presumably Virgin Media Ireland will be reorganised back to being directly owned by Liberty Global rather than being a subsidiary of Virgin Media in the UK. It will be interesting to see if the Virgin Media brand continues to be used in Ireland afterwards.
JA
Jake
I'd expect they'd want a unified brand in the UK, whether that's VM, O2, or something new is hard to know.
PE
Pete Founding member
What about giffgaff?

Do Virgin still do ADSL connections? I can see them ditching that and moving their openreach business entirely over to the o2 brand, keeping Virgin for cable.
JA
Jake
Pete posted:
What about giffgaff?

Do Virgin still do ADSL connections? I can see them ditching that and moving their openreach business entirely over to the o2 brand, keeping Virgin for cable.

They sold the consumer ADSL customers to TalkTalk a few years a go.
PE
Pete Founding member
Jake posted:
Pete posted:
What about giffgaff?

Do Virgin still do ADSL connections? I can see them ditching that and moving their openreach business entirely over to the o2 brand, keeping Virgin for cable.

They sold the consumer ADSL customers to TalkTalk a few years a go.


Well that answers that then.

So that just leaves Virgin Mobile and giffgaff as unknowns

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