Sky will lose either by paying more than they would like to Discovery, or by losing subscription revenue from people who choose to leave or downgrade once those channels disappear. It will have to weigh up which it believes would be the bigger loss.
Discovery will also have to weigh up whether the lower offer from Sky is worth it too, as otherwise they get nothing and would set to lose viewers and advertising revenue if they leave the platform. In the long term this means less money to invest in content, making themselves even less attractive to Sky should they try to negotiate carriage with them again in the future.
I think Sky has underestimated the value of its subscribers, and should do the right thing for them by offering to pay the same as they have done in the past even if it's just a short term measure to continue negotiations without the channels going off air.
The only thing worth watching there finishes tomorrow
They'll be taken off from the 1st, which is Wednesday
Brekkie is talking about the Australian Open finishing tomorrow. There are other sports being broadcast though. The semi finals of the African Cup of Nations start Wednesday for example, and there is live cycling, snooker, athletics and winter sports all week, all of these "worth watching" for their fans.
They're not that new, they're just not as common as in the US. Sky and Virgin had a falling out with Sky's basic channels being removed from Virgin's platform for most of 2008, and as I've previously mentioned Viacom and Telewest (as was) had a disagreement which saw the Nickelodeon channels removed from its platform for a few months at the end of 2004 into 2005.
They're not that new, they're just not as common as in the US. Sky and Virgin had a falling out with Sky's basic channels being removed from Virgin's platform for most of 2008
And a very public campaign involving the temporary renaming of the closed Sky channels' EPG slots as "Sky Sports Snooze", etc.
They're not that new, they're just not as common as in the US. Sky and Virgin had a falling out with Sky's basic channels being removed from Virgin's platform for most of 2008
And a very public campaign involving the temporary renaming of the closed Sky channels' EPG slots as "Sky Sports Snooze", etc.
Looking back, the dispute lasted far longer than I remembered it being. March 2007 - November 2008. These days, Sky runs specially made promotions with the Virgin Media logo and web address for Virgin viewers. How times have changed.
