Virgin One 24 Hr?? (Freeview)

Hey guys,

Virgin One looks great but I have a few worries.

The channel is apparently only going to broadcast from 6pm-6am. I have always been a fan of the Challenge content (Crystal Maze etc.) which airs on freeview FTN. I worry that Virgin One (meant to rival Sky One) will air nothing but US programming in the 12 hours which it will broadcast:cry: .
I feel that if this is to be the case, which I hope it is not, Virgin could purchase a 24 Hour slot, thus increasing the amount of programming they can fit in. They could air more of good Challenge, Bravo, Living and Trouble content perhaps during the day and keep the US stuff until later at night.

Just my suggestions, please provide feedback.

Jin666

Rumour has it that it will replace one of the SitUp shopping channels (which Flextech/Virgin etc have some ownership of)

Really?! I've never heard that before but it's brilliant news.

Do you have a source, as I always assumed it was replacing FTN?

Jin666

This sounds great! When does it launch on Freeview?

Is that a rumour or is it just that someone said on here "hopefully it'll replace one of the sit-up channels"?

There's some info on this here and here

Those links state it's probably replacing FTN as I thought!

Well, I certainly said it as "hopefully"...

Virgin now own:

- Ftn
- Bid Up TV
- Price Drop TV

I heard that Virgin 1 will take the stream of Ftn, but Ftn will be back as it will take over Bid Up TV between 6pm and 6am, with Bid Up TV broadcasting throughout the day.

I don't know how much truth is in that

Well this quote from the article on the Virgin Media website pretty much explains the situation.

"Virgin 1 builds on the track record of Ftn as VMtv's free-to-air channel, with Ftn rebranding to take the Virgin 1 name on the EPG . It will broadcast for 12 hours (6pm to 6am) on Freeview, with a 24 hour schedule on Virgin Media and satellite."

Oh I never got round to reading it yet anyway it was just something I had heard. That is a real shame about Ftn, just as it was getting good

I would think that Virgin 1 was always on the cards as a replacement for Ftn. They will take alot of the DTT rights for programmes from Ftn and the rest acquired within the budget they have outlined.

It's good that VM have moved in this direction, but worrying that alot of the public see it as a cheap "alternative/thrown-together" replacement for Sky One from DCab and Sky Three from Freeview (if/when BskyB remove it)