Virgin Media Televison

I think that they'll probably perhaps merge one of the Sky1, Sky1+1, or Sky1+2 Channels into Bravo and Living, and just pop them up the EPG above Gold and Watch. You think that the channel content that Sky and VMTV have together, Cougar Town, Greys Anatomy, Simpsons, 24, Lost, that is a winning combination. So here's how it'll go.

Bravo + Sky 3, to form Sky Bravo, or Bravo (small sky logo underneath, increasingly getting bigger till it becomes Sky Bravo)

Living + Sky 2 + Sky Real Life to form Sky Living.

Virgin 1 and Sky 1 to form Sky One or, Virgin 1, part of the Sky Network

From a wrestling fans perspective, it'll be interesting to see what happens to TNA if they get their hands on Bravo.

If Sky go about it the way they go about everything else, TNA wont stay on Bravo, as it is taking viewers away from WWE on Sky Sports.

With Sky Sports being subscription, and Bravo being free to view, it makes sense for them to do something about it...

Meh!

They only did the old "X....part of the British Sky Broadcasting Network" intros because they were legally oblilged to, until the BSB licence on Marco Polo had expired, AFAIK. It also gave a uniform identity to those former Sky channels where the requirement didn't apply.

It may have been some other obscure reason, but I do recall that they had little choice. The minute the requirement lapsed, they launched a fresh set of idents.

Whilst this is another takeover (of VMTV this time), it's not going to be sold to the public as a merger, or using any of VM's transmission routes that haven't been formally transferred.


Bravo is a subscription channel in Sky's Variety Package .

Thinking about it, the last time there was a merger on this level was the BSB/Sky merger - BSkyB ultimately abandoned all BSBs brand names completely, and even went as far as to create new temporary Sky brands to use up unplayed arts content! In retrospect, they missed a trick with Galaxy; UK Gold launched with a very similar line up and became very successful in the 90s.

I wonder how profitable Challenge is? It seems to be all-but abandoned as I say, not dissimilar to how men&motors was for its last couple of years. Its very small staff is now split between Challenge and LIVINGit.

If the takeover goes ahead, it'll probably mean Sky will want to take the playout in house - which will be interesting, given that Flextech (as was) didn't move to Red Bee all that long ago, and made a big show of their Creative Village - there's a lot of technology integration that'll need un-integrated.

Indeed, the original 'Sky Arts' was played out as a sub-channel on Sky News (but only on Marco Polo, not Astra) using some content fron 'Now' , which ceased at the time of the takeover/merger.

'Galaxy' disappeared immediately (subsumed into Sky One), but they didn't have retro 'gold' programmes; in fact they energized Sky One to become a main enterainment channel for the network.

'The Movie Channel' retained its name (with BSkyB branding) for many years as the alternative to 'Sky Movies' , probably due to rights which had been purchased. They then briefly became Screen 1/2, before 'Sky Premier' , with Sky's original channel becoming 'Sky Moviemax' . BSBs original channels always seemed to have the best content. They also had the best delivery system (DMac), but ultimately not as popular as Sky's.

I think they kept the 'Power Station' (music channel), but with the BSkyB branding until their transponder lease expired on Marco Polo (which was moved and became Sirius 1, AFAIK, serving Scandinavia).

'The Sports Channel' was just rebranded as Sky Sports. Perhaps those rights were easier.

Surely, Sky Challenge is quite a good name, if they want to keep that channel as it is post-VMTV takeover?

Galaxy was sold as a general entertainment channel. In fact, it relied heavily on BBC library programs; they missed a trick in not capitalising on this before UK Gold got in on the act. (Incidentally, I don't think this is a market being adequately served even today).

The Power Station was kept for a year or so before being replaced by Sky Movies. I think they had toyed with the idea of putting this on Astra but ultimately they got MTV Europe instead.

From what I've read online and also watched online, then all the BBC Comedy programmes from Galaxy were put onto The Comedy Channel, but Sky pulled that off the air after 12 months, again like Sky Arts I think it was there for contractual puproses, as I couldn't imagine an early 90's Sky One showing old BBC repeats.

As for The Power Station it had gone by April 1991, their space on Marcopolo was given to Sky Movies, but you are correct Sky were toying with the idea of putting it on Astra, but found it cheaper to back and promote MTV instead. IMO if the then newly formed BSkyB weren't in such dire straits financially then I think they would have kept The Power Station as there was no other British music channel at the time, but as I said it was cheaper for them to promote MTV. The channels that Sky didn't want they pulled off the air straight away, those were obviously Galaxy and Now. The Sports Channel and The Movie Channel they obviously kept as both stations had some decent valuable content on them.

Presuming this sale goes ahead to Sky then I can't see too much changing, I think it's a safe bet Virgin 1 will be pulled, but they'll keep Living and Bravo for certain, I wouldn't like to see their names changed as both channels have been round for so long and they're well established it would be daft to change them, but they should obviously make them feel like Sky channels.

I can't be too sure for Challenge, I would like to see it stay, but as others have said they haven't done much with the channel lately, but I guess its making a profit in some form, if a bunch of old gameshow repeats can still get sponsorship on their transmissions, then they can't be doing too bad. I could see Challenge Jackpot being merged with Sky Vegas though.

I can see the same, for the interactive arm...that's why I think they would just rebrand the game show repeats as 'Sky Challenge' , they don't have something similar do they?

I dont think Challenge will get the sky name added to it, I do hope there make some improvement.

UK gold etc are still NOT using the back catalogue to its full use

No-where near as important, that was far bigger.

This is just 4 or 5 channel brands changing owners, the BSB/Sky merger meant the takeover and subsequent closure of a whole distribution platform

They are, they're showing the most popular stuff to bring in the maximum revenue. That is all they need to do