Virgin & Sky

Just been announced on BBC News that they've now come to an agreement and Sky's channels will return to Virgin Media.

Great news.

More details from the Sky press office:

BSkyB And Virgin Media Sign New Channel Carriage Agreements
Breakthrough for pay satellite and cable customers as carriage of "basic" channels secured until June 2011

Sky and Virgin Media (NASDAQ:VMED) today announced that, following successful negotiations, they have agreed two new channel carriage deals.

The first agreement will see the return, on 13 November, of Sky's Basic channels – including Sky1, Sky2, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 – to Virgin Media's cable TV service. The second agreement provides for the continued carriage of Virgin Media TV's basic channels – Living, Living 2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Trouble, Challenge and Virgin 1 – as part of Sky's retailed channel line-up on satellite. Both deals will run concurrently until 12 June 2011.

The agreements include fixed annual carriage fees for the channels with both channel suppliers able to secure additional capped payments if their channels meet certain performance-related targets.

Commenting on the agreements, Virgin Media's CEO, Neil Berkett, said: "We are pleased to bring our carriage negotiations with Sky to a successful close. I believe this agreement represents a fair deal and is the right thing for our customers. We recognise the quality and popularity of Sky's channels and look forward to welcoming them back to Virgin Media's TV service. We are also pleased to secure Sky's continued carriage of the VMTV channels until June 2011."

Jeremy Darroch, Sky's CEO, adds: "This is great news for Sky and Virgin Media customers alike. We want our channels to be enjoyed by as many people as possible so we're delighted to secure their return to the Virgin Media platform."

As part of the agreements, both Sky and Virgin Media have agreed to terminate all High Court proceedings against each other relating to the carriage of their respective basic channels.

- ends -
Notes to Editors
Sky3, Sky News and Sky Sports News will join Virgin Media's "M" TV package and therefore be available to all digital TV subscribers.

Sky1 and Sky2 will join Virgin Media's "L" TV package and therefore be available to both "L" and "XL" TV subscribers.

Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 will join Virgin Media's "XL" TV package.

Living, Living 2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Virgin 1 and Challenge will be available to subscribers of Sky's "Variety" channel pack.

Trouble will be available to subscribers to Sky's "Children's" pack.

fantastic news. It'll be good to watch all those shows that you think you need to watch on Sky1, but then realise that they're not that good and its just wall to wall simpons.

Fantastic *and unexpected* news!

So the toys are back in the pram then.

They settled it like grown adults then

Or maybe I could be so cynical and say Sky needed the money and so did the advertisers with the upcoming Christmas shenigans.

Oh I'm surprised, but as a Virgin customer - pleased. I've missed The Simpsons Channel.

It will be interesting to see if they publicly announce how much they paid Sky for the channels and whether that's a significant reduction in what Sky originally wanted.

I don't have VM, but am I right in thinking that Virgin1 took Sky One's previous prominent position on the EPG when Sky's channels were pulled? Presumably on its return it will end up much further down the EPG.

Rumour has it that there will be a big channel reshuffle on Virgin at the start of next week - a few days before the channels return.

I've always liked the idea of grouping channel brands together but I don't think that will happen (ie. have UKTV & VMTV channels then followed by Sky basics, then Discovery channels, etc).

Sky One (sorry, Sky 1 ) used to be on channel 120 on VIrgin I think, before they removed it.

That's great news! Good to see them settle out of court.

No (although it *might* have taken Sky Two's). Sky One's old number was taken by "Virgin Central 2" - basically, a looping advert for the Video-On-Demand service.