The shifting of content to Drama and Yesterday has devalued UKTV's pay TV channels. Couldn't the same be said for Discovery and their Quest/Quest Red channels? Lots of recent Discovery/TLC shows are shown on these channels and this surely devalues their pay TV channels, some shows are even shown first on Quest/Quest Red. Discovery/TLC/Turbo/Animal Planet/ID have the first run content. Discovery H&H, History, Shed, DMAX are worse than Quest/Quest Red as all they have is repeat after repeat. When Discovery's deal with Virgin comes up for renewal again there could be issues like Sky had.
I think pretty much all the main channel providers have a mixture of free and pay channels now - only NBC Universal and Disney in the OFOCM list who don't have currently have free offerings.
When I visited my parents today, they were watching some helicopter rescue thing on W, and it was originally a production for Really. Considering W was meant to be the flagship channel from its start date, it'd be like having original content on Pick TV and repeating it on Sky Atlantic.
UKTV though was basically built on showing content that had previously been shown free to air. Whether that's coming from BBC1 or Really it doesn't really matter - especially if it is just weekend afternoon schedule filler.
I think the bigger issue is that UKTV's flagship pay-TV channel just isn't very good. Sky rebranding Living as Witness though could be an opportunity for it to step in and concentrate on the market Living previously targetted.
W should stand for Waste of time. The 'rebrand' wasn't as successful as I suspect UKTV wanted it to be, not helped by by Gold still being more successful showing 40 year old comedy along with the heritage of the brand and the FTA scheduling mess on Yesterday and Drama.
W's original commissions include Inside the Ambulance and Dr Christian Will See You Now, which would position them in the Lifetime category if it wasn't for the off-target comedies that have been on Gold or even Drama and the US dramas.
UKTV though was basically built on showing content that had previously been shown free to air. Whether that's coming from BBC1 or Really it doesn't really matter - especially if it is just weekend afternoon schedule filler.
I think the bigger issue is that UKTV's flagship pay-TV channel just isn't very good. Sky rebranding Living as Witness though could be an opportunity for it to step in and concentrate on the market Living previously targetted.
W is a very poor channel and doesn't offer much. They'd be better merging W/Alibi to create a better pay TV channel. UKTV hardly need 10 channels anyway going forward? Good Food/Home/Really could be merged.
Also don't UKTV already have Really as their 'Living' channel?
W should stand for Waste of time. The 'rebrand' wasn't as successful as I suspect UKTV wanted it to be, not helped by by Gold still being more successful showing 40 year old comedy along with the heritage of the brand and the FTA scheduling mess on Yesterday and Drama.
W's original commissions include Inside the Ambulance and Dr Christian Will See You Now, which would position them in the Lifetime category if it wasn't for the off-target comedies that have been on Gold or even Drama and the US dramas.
Aren't UKTV commissioning it's first original drama Flack as a co-production with Pop in the US.
Can anyone hazard a guess when this mess will be resolved? Days, weeks, months? Trying to find information from both sides is like trying to get the truth from Donald Trump. I hate Virgin and UKTV with equal contempt. Always the customer is the poor sod in the middle. Nothing changes there. We are just the ones that pay for it.
This whole dispute sounds a lot like some exec sitting in a room in London going "well no-one watches linear TV any more so these channels are worthless." It almost sounds like the sort of nonsense someone would give in an interview question as "what is the first thing you'd do if you got the job?"
Problem is, while there is appointment to view television out there which people will actively seek out, when people first get in at night after a day at work they just want to switch the TV on and find a familiar channel that's guaranteed to show something they like as background/comfort viewing. Many of UKTV's channels are perfect examples of this, especially Dave. In the same way as you won't actively find the Shaun of the Dead DVD you've got in the house and put it on, you'd probably watch it for the 54th time if it was on ITV2 (again).
Actually, when you think about it, how many people would actually go to the bother of looking through their On Demand for anything that's on UKTV channels? They are ones you default to in the above scenario, or if there's nothing else on TV and you can't be bothered looking out something on Netflix/YouTube.
It'll all settle down, they'll reach some sort of compromise and very few customers will go to the hassle of cancelling for these particular channels. If I was a Virgin customer I'd be chancing my arm at threatening to go for a reduction. But that's about it. There are relatively few options for multi-channel linear TV and most won't bother going to the hassle of switching providers.
Actually, when you think about it, how many people would actually go to the bother of looking through their On Demand for anything that's on UKTV channels? They are ones you default to in the above scenario, or if there's nothing else on TV and you can't be bothered looking out something on Netflix/YouTube.
For their original content I would... and do. They put up new episodes of series like Taskmaster and Red Dwarf up on UKTV Play the week before they're on Dave
Annoyingly they don't do that with the last episode, so if you're watching purely on demand then you have to wait 2 weeks for the end of the series
The 'free channels should be given to our customers for free' argument is nonsense; if you stop paying Sky, TalkTalk, BT, EE etc. you continue to be able to access those channels for free (it's possible you might need to obtain a different decoder, but the actual feed still works). If you stop paying Virgin Media, you no longer have access to anything (except possibly 101-105, while your line is alive). The only way you can access UKTV channels on cable is to pay Virgin Media a monthly subscription. It's reasonable for UKTV to expect remuneration in respect of that.
I would encourage all affected customers to issue their notice and invest in a different platform. If they refuse to take your notice then complain in writing.
The 'free channels should be given to our customers for free' argument is nonsense; if you stop paying Sky, TalkTalk, BT, EE etc. you continue to be able to access those channels for free (it's possible you might need to obtain a different decoder, but the actual feed still works). If you stop paying Virgin Media, you no longer have access to anything (except possibly 101-105, while your line is alive).
I'm not sure how it works with the ip based services like EE and Talktalk, when you unsubscribe don't their boxes stop working too? I know BT gets some linear channels like Dave through the aerial so that's not you continuing to get them from your pay TV supplier, it's continuing to get them from DTT aka Freeview. Most Virgin customers will get that when they leave the company
I do agree though that there's not really any such thing as a 'free' channel on Virgin, but the fact one is free elsewhere does make a it a less sellable proposition when they're marketing their cable service.