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UKTV channels set to leave Virgin Media on Sunday

11th August - they’re back (July 2018)

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BM
BM11
JKDerry posted:
London Lite posted:
Video statement from UKTV's Steve North, controller of W, Dave and Gold.




It looks like this is it. UKTV will not budge, so bye bye to Virgin Media. UKTV and Virgin should have worked harder. They are business people, not 5 year olds. Thank God I have Freesat, as well as UKTV play on my laptop. But, others aren't so lucky. This is the problem with the cable network. It happens in America, where channels can be whipped off.

Depends how many cancellations and threats to do so such Virgin have already got today and how much it hurts them. Most customers don't have contacts so can cancel very quickly.
JK
JKDerry
bilky asko posted:
BM11 posted:
Stuart posted:
I've had Sky for nearly 20 years, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have lost the signal due to bad weather that I didn't resolve in 5 minutes.


I've cancelled Sky for better deals more often than I've lost their service though bad weather.

An STB would reboot itself while you were away and carry on recording, or you could get everything from Catch-Up anyway.

Catch up only lasts 28 days so you have to rush through things to make the deadline.
I have been at realtvies sevreal times when Sky has vanished for a lot longer than five mins during a thunder storm.

I have to agree with Stuart here. There have only been two occasions where I've had Sky go off for more than 5 minutes. One was during the worst thunderstorm I'd ever seen, and the other was during a downpour that caused the worst flooding for over a century.

My Freesat, which uses the same satellite connection as I used for Sky since 2009 is fantastic. Now and again you would get the odd little picture break up if there was a really heavy downpour, or a bird sits on the satellite. Otherwise, 99% of the time is perfect signal.

I have Freesat and Virgin, and when I flick between the two, the picture quality is superb on Freesat, with Virgin pixelating at times, in the words of their engineers, it is down due to capacity in the area, how old my cables are, and the strength of their signal from their cabinet box to my Tivo box.

Well Sky and Freesat never had the issue with me, always great pictures. So, I am thinking of cancelling Virgin Tivo, and keep the broadband, as it is the fastest in my area. Many others might consider the same.
JK
JKDerry
BM11 posted:
JKDerry posted:
London Lite posted:
Video statement from UKTV's Steve North, controller of W, Dave and Gold.




It looks like this is it. UKTV will not budge, so bye bye to Virgin Media. UKTV and Virgin should have worked harder. They are business people, not 5 year olds. Thank God I have Freesat, as well as UKTV play on my laptop. But, others aren't so lucky. This is the problem with the cable network. It happens in America, where channels can be whipped off.

Depends how many cancellations and threats of such Virgin have already got today and how much it hurts them.

Virgin need to know what is at stake here, as hopefully they would have gotten the message. Get ready for a press statement tomorrow, either announcing the end of the channels, or the last minute deal, which of course they will make out it was they who were the deal maker and not a deal breaker. I think it is time to reconsider Virgin. Good broadband, useless TV.
IS
Ipswich Simon
Virgin Media are pants anyway.
JK
JKDerry
Well for broadband I get 100MB from Virgin, compared to Sky/BT/TalkTalk which all can only offer 50MB in my area. So at least with that, Virgin are a bit better for some.
BM
BM11
It's much better than Sky in terms of free sport's channels.
BM
BM11
JKDerry posted:
BM11 posted:
JKDerry posted:
It looks like this is it. UKTV will not budge, so bye bye to Virgin Media. UKTV and Virgin should have worked harder. They are business people, not 5 year olds. Thank God I have Freesat, as well as UKTV play on my laptop. But, others aren't so lucky. This is the problem with the cable network. It happens in America, where channels can be whipped off.

Depends how many cancellations and threats of such Virgin have already got today and how much it hurts them.

Virgin need to know what is at stake here, as hopefully they would have gotten the message. Get ready for a press statement tomorrow, either announcing the end of the channels, or the last minute deal, which of course they will make out it was they who were the deal maker and not a deal breaker. I think it is time to reconsider Virgin. Good broadband, useless TV.

Or they will return in a couple of weeks when suddenly there a lot of cancellations and SKY offer generous deals to pouch people.
JK
JKDerry
Will there ever be a day when all of UKTV will be on Freesat? They have many of their channels already on there, which is what is causing this argument with Virgin in the first place.
LL
London Lite Founding member
BM11 posted:
London Lite posted:
Video statement from UKTV's Steve North, controller of W, Dave and Gold.




Ofcom or another body should take over negotiations as neither side seems able to not descend into bitter spin.


It has nothing to do with Ofcom. It's a commercial dispute between two parties.

Unfortunately, this does mean VM customers are in the crossfire for now. Sky's entertainment channels came off and they did return eventually. The same is likely to happen with UKTV's channels, but not this weekend.
Stuart, Jeffmister and Brekkie gave kudos
BM
BM11
London Lite posted:
BM11 posted:
London Lite posted:
Video statement from UKTV's Steve North, controller of W, Dave and Gold.




Ofcom or another body should take over negotiations as neither side seems able to not descend into bitter spin.


It has nothing to do with Ofcom. It's a commercial dispute between two parties.

Unfortunately, this does mean VM customers are in the crossfire for now. Sky's entertainment channels came off and they did return eventually. The same is likely to happen with UKTV's channels, but not this weekend.

And who licenses the Channels? Ofcom need those powers - they would probably help prevent these issues and even if they cant we would have all the facts and not just spin from the two parties.
Last edited by BM11 on 20 July 2018 7:31pm
UK
UKnews
JKDerry posted:
Well for broadband I get 100MB from Virgin, compared to Sky/BT/TalkTalk which all can only offer 50MB in my area. So at least with that, Virgin are a bit better for some.

A good ISP is not all about headline speeds, it’s about how a network is setup and run. I have a much lower connection speed than I could get with Virgin, yet I get that just about all the time and have virtually no problems. The ISP supplied router I have is actually fairly good as well.


The BBCs recent 4K HDR atreamung trial showed the point about headline speeds. There were one or two things that seemed to be a common cause for those who were suffering a lot of buffering. One was trying to use 2.4ghz WiFi. The other was having Virgin Media as their ISP. I had virtually no issues. Of course everyone’s experience may be different, maybe (not just with that example) I’ve been fortunate.
:-(
A former member
Why not complain?
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