Virgin still tweeting out they're "in discussions with UKTV", UKTV still tweeting they "haven't heard from Virgin and a deal is unlikely"- so good we're getting a consistent story on the situation.
This could potentially finish Virgin, which could leave millions without broadband and phones, let alone TV.
If ITV goes, I can't see more than 10% of their customer base staying.
It's a worrying situation.
In any case, can't any PVR skip ads? You just press fast forward. We've been doing that since the 80s!
Even if ITV stay, you can be sure other channel providers are going to try it on now when contracts are up for renewal, Virgin have got themselves into a bad situation.
I called them on Monday - said I wanted to leave because of the loss of the UKTV channels and quoted the prices Sky had offered me (having rang them first), but made it clear I didn’t really want the hassle of changing provider, but I really wanted those channels. The guy was excellent - said I could leave with no penalty (even though 13 months left on my contract) but if I stayed he could give me a £6 reduction on my bill for 18 months and a £50 credit (to buy a Firestick or similar to allow me to get those channels).
You won't be able to get those channels on a Firestick, at least legally anyway, due to device restrictions on the TVPlayer platform.
The UKTV Play app is on the Firestick, just like BBC i-Player, ITV Hub etc. I bought one and I’m watching them. No different to watching them on a phone or tablet. I can’t
stream
the channels of course, but I’m not bothered about that (though there probably is a way).
EDIT: There is a free app you can download to Firestick etc that allows you to stream the UKTV channels (and many others). I won’t mention it as it’s legality is probably questionable, but the guy at Virgin was happy to discuss Kodi etc so I assume he was aware of this app too.
It’s recording stuff to keep that’s an issue without a hard drive recorder or a subscription to Sky or similar.
This could potentially finish Virgin, which could leave millions without broadband and phones, let alone TV.
If ITV goes, I can't see more than 10% of their customer base staying.
It's a worrying situation.
In any case, can't any PVR skip ads? You just press fast forward. We've been doing that since the 80s!
Even if ITV stay, you can be sure other channel providers are going to try it on now when contracts are up for renewal, Virgin have got themselves into a bad situation.
I would hope Ofcom will step in if ITV pulls the plug.
Call me old fashioned by my view of life is if you can get it without a subscription on UHF via an aerial, it should be available to all on any other platform. I've gone rummaging around for a co-ax so I can get Dave and Co. Shouldn't have to though when I pay Virgin 43 quid a month. I also stumbled across Blaze whilst in a hotel at the weekend which had a Freeview set in the room - no idea it was there but it has some cracking stuff on it, including early series of Air Crash Investigation. Again, not on Virgin.
It's a sad indictment of Virgin when the channels on Freeview beat what VM can offer me!
Interesting that the BBC could play this game. You'd have a lot of people simply not paying their license though if they lost the very services that fee pays for, however.
I wonder if there is any likelihood of VM offering a good quality off air Freeview signal using the connection that used to carry a good quality FM aerial feed?
On the basis that most punters will have a TV with built in Freeview, but not necessarily a good aerial/reception, that might be a useful service.
I wonder if there is any likelihood of VM offering a good quality off air Freeview signal using the connection that used to carry a good quality FM aerial feed?
Ziltch I'd say. You'd need to frequency shift the mux carriers (as was the case with the FM radio systems) , because in many places the cabling would radiate, and also receive the direct signal. That in turn would require fiddling about with the SI data, because all the frequency tables would be invalid, which means demuxing to extract the data, and re encoding. Not impossible, some hotels do that, but on a city wide scheme it would require a lot of continuous 'managing'. Virgin ain't going to do that !!
BM
BM11
The only thing I could see virgin doing is contributing to Aerials as part of 12months contracts to stop people leaving but who don’t have a working Aerials.
The only thing I could see virgin doing is contributing to Aerials as part of 12months contracts to stop people leaving but who don’t have a working Aerials.
It seems an interesting workaround but for people in areas like myself that only have Freeview Lite and can’t get UKTV channels, it wouldn’t work.
The only thing I could see virgin doing is contributing to Aerials as part of 12months contracts to stop people leaving but who don’t have a working Aerials.
It seems an interesting workaround but for people in areas like myself that only have Freeview Lite and can’t get UKTV channels, it wouldn’t work.
It must be quite rare to be able to get cable but only freeview lite.
The only thing I could see virgin doing is contributing to Aerials as part of 12months contracts to stop people leaving but who don’t have a working Aerials.
It seems an interesting workaround but for people in areas like myself that only have Freeview Lite and can’t get UKTV channels, it wouldn’t work.
It must be quite rare to be able to get cable but only freeview lite.
The transmitter network is not fair, as many areas have freeview lite. Where I am, in my part of the city I can receive the full freeview service via Limavady transmitter which is around 18 miles from the city. However just a mile away in the city a relative of mine can only receive freeview lite from the Londonderry transmitter which is located in the city itself. He can't pick Limavady due to tress and buildings in his area blocking the signal
Also some people technically don't live in a Freeview Lite area, but because some Muxes are broadcast on lower power than others they effectively only end up with that because of weak signals.