Hoping that they can come to a last minute agreement, if not it will be a huge blow to both parties.
This explains the sudden flurry of additions to the TV service on Saturday, ahead of the 10 channels plus all the HD and +1 versions potentially leaving on Sunday!
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It's why Ofcom need to get involved more in these issues and be the negotiators and take channel coverage out of the hands of providers (and therefore Ban exclusive channels).
Am very annoyed as Eastenders 1985 is due in a couple of weeks and Now I will miss it.
The new channels bar Freesports sound awful and will surely not tempt anyone considering leaving because of it - which includes us because we watch a lot of the channels.
Plus I can't imagine the channels are big draws On Demand then.
From reading the press release from UKTV it seems like Virgin aren't for budging on this.
The 'replacement' channels from Virgin sound lack luster to say the say. That's screams to me that they don't really care what replaces the UKTV channels.
From reading the press release from UKTV it seems like Virgin aren't for budging on this.
The 'replacement' channels from Virgin sound lack luster to say the say. That's screams to me that they don't really care what replaces the UKTV channels.
They have weird names for a start. Only Freesports will keep any customers.
And once people cancel and give that as an excuse they will add a few more new channels.
From reading the press release from UKTV it seems like Virgin aren't for budging on this.
The 'replacement' channels from Virgin sound lack luster to say the say. That's screams to me that they don't really care what replaces the UKTV channels.
They have weird names for a start. Only Freesports will keep any customers.
And once people cancel and give that as an excuse they will add a few more new channels.
They'd make me happy by giving me WorldBox for free...
Let's not forget, Virgin Media has form. Sky's basic channels disappeared from the platform for a time and included such comedic renaming like "Sky Snooze" on the old channel numbers.
Of course, Discovery also has been known to play hardball in disputes like these so perhaps not that surprising.
But with separate licencing agreements in place with the online providers, where does that leave a series of channels that (despite some new content) is largely reliant on archive programming?
The Discovery/Sky Digital spat last year was resolved, not quite at the 11th hour, but nearly. The reason was, it was in both parties interests. Obviously, Discovery wanted the x million of viewers that Sky digital offered, Sky didn't want to lose the possibility of offering such a service, which could've then appeared on Sky boxes, but provided by another subscribing base, e.g. bundled in with BT Sport.
The thing with Virgin is, it has reach, but not as much reach as what Sky Digital offers. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, these things always seem to get resolved at the 11th hour. With the Discovery/Sky dispute last year, I quoted the negotiations in 2004, to allow ITV3 to launch on Sky, and how it was five hours before the channel launched, when the deal was done. It can and sometimes does go to the wire.
Am very annoyed as Eastenders 1985 is due in a couple of weeks and Now I will miss it.
Well Drama is on Freeview, so you can watch it there.
But I'm wanting to watch them too, so it's annoying. I can watch it via freeview, but I'm not going to be there every day to watch them as they're being broadcast, with the channel on Virgin I can set them to record through the Tivo box, but I have no way to record off Freeview, so I'd need to buy a Freeview PVR to be able to record them, which I don't particularly want to do.
But, hey, it's alright as I get to watch ZooMoo as compensation.... right?