If you are a customer of Virgin Media Television (formerly NTL Telewest) and watch any of the Sky basic channels (Sky News, Sky One etc...), it is important you ring customer services and tell them you are worried about the loss of these channels. Otherwise they may go off the service.

It seems Branson/Virgin is already trying to throw his weight about only 5 minutes after getting into the industry by trying to charge higher fee's to broadcasters. One big problem for him is he is doing it to the wrong company, Sky could end up pulling all their channels as a result, and 50% of the popular channels would go. So let them know you are not happy to lose these channels!

Can't really understand Virgin Media on this one, these channels gain them customers, without the likes of Sky One a lot of people will leave. I think its just Branson thinking he owns the industrry now he has a little crappy cable service that is about 5 yrs out of date and lightyears behind Sky.

Muppets!

Digital Spy Report

I'm not calling them lol....

Loose the channels loose the customers easy peesy lol..

i hope they dont ruin it, NTL telewest is the best all-in-one service provider ever,i only wish they done it in my area,it'd save me over 20 sheets a month

Tell me some more jokes Scoop, ya gettin good

show me a better package?

on demand TV meaning u can watch BBC programs when u like,for no extra charge,fast cheap internet,and free phgonecalls eve and weekend for pittence line rental,i loved it, and,it never ever went wrong on me,unlike my BT home hub,and my SKY box

Hahaha Scoop, you obviously know pretty much nothing about NTL. Thier network has barely changed since they took over CWC in 2000.

They are still running CR3 (Liberate 1.2), which was developed in 1999, they are still giving out Pace Di2000's and Di4000's (which may I remind you were never fast when they were originally released, and that was in 1998 and 1999 respectively), the network is still on the DOCSIS 1.1 format, with no hope in hell of them upgrading it to DOCSIS 2.0, never mind 3.0 (in fact some parts of the network STILL use the DAVIC format, from the 80's).

Their service hardly works, its full of flaws, the boxes are slow when compared to the Sky EPG software, its also very limited due to lack of investment into the software and box capabilities when compared to Sky.

Wow you can watch a few BBC programs on thier "on demand" service (when it actually works I might remind you), their HDTV offering is the most rediculous lineup ever, just BBC HD, wheras Sky have over 10 mainstream HD channels, they havent even started the nationwide roll out of TV Drive yet, whereas Sky have had Sky+ available since 2001 and SkyHD since 2006...

Lets see if its really cheaper, heres what my mum has:

Sky Digital with 2 channel packs, Sky Broadband 2Mbps/448Kbps and a BT telephone line - £26.00 per month.

Virgin "M" tv pack, 2Mbps/200Kbps internet and a telephone line - £30.00 per month.

Lets see if its cheaper for my current range of services:

Sky Digital with Sky Sports & Movies, Sky+, Sky Broadband 8Mbps/448Kbps and a BT Phoneline (with Sky Talk, so calls are cheaper then NTL in general) - £59.50 per month.

Virgin "XL" tv pack with Sky Sports & Movies, TV Drive (not available in my area yet), 10Mbps/384Kbps and a basic phoneline - £100.00 per month.

So how exactly is that cheaper? And Sky are moving away from CPS to offering direct phoneline soon, the line rental will be even cheaper (£2.00 less then BT).

With regards to on demand, Sky have had their Sky Anytime (formerly Sky By Broadrband) service for over 2 years now and it pisses all over the few select BBC programs you can get on the ondemand service from Virgin. Also, BBC Archive launches this year, very soon in fact, which will make Virgin On Demand almost obsolete. And who needs any on demand service, when one has Sky+ and UK Nova at thier disposal??

BTW, one last little dig, how much "interactive" content do NTL actually have haha.

thats a nice lot of spiel u've put there matty, but for the money i spent at the time, u cudnt get better. and thats all i'll say.

as for the NTL boxes being slow,yes they were,but the sky box aint exactly lightning fast

The modern days ones are, my Sky+ (an Amstrad V2) is a bit slow, but its getting on for 4 years old and nowhere near as slow as many peoples NTL boxes around here. But the thing with Sky is they are always releasing newer, faster boxes. My mum has the brand new Sky box and the EPG is almost instant to every key press and menu selection.

My Sky+ is having a couple of slowdowns of late and I will be getting a new one, but I am just waiting for Sky to launch their streamed on-demand service, as I will have a double excuse, because the newest boxes have 160GB hard drives (with 80GB reserved for the streamed on demand service) and mine only has a 40GB hard drive. Unless my box dies first of course lol!

I remember we had NTL and it was on a Di1000. It was fine, although it was slow compared to the Sky boxes at the time. Then the Di2000 was released, which was almost identiacal, and then the Di4000/4001, which when I was a mod on the nthellworld.com forums, gave us endless problem threads due to the amount of bugs, crashes and overheating that the boxes happened to suffer from. Also, with NTL CR software, they have never been fast enough to run at a decent speed.

They do give out the odd Samsung box every now and again which are okish, but thats merely because they ended up with a contractual agreement with Samsung, when Pace declined to give them any more boxes on credit (they were owed £29million at the time by NTL), in a sort of bribery arrangement to get Pace to give them more boxes on credit.

I suppose its a case of Sky having the cash to invest into and develop thier services and NTL Telewest/Virgin Media not.

well maybe virgin media will make the service better,using faster boxes and all that malarky? cos richard branson is competitive

It used to be good scoop,
it has gone down hill on the TV and Broadband service.

TV - On demand
Its good if there is somthing you want to watch,
NO ITV - CH4 - CH5 - Little BBC2 More BBC1
But anything worth watching is 75p > £1.50
It sounds good but its poor, and you never know what there
going to have in the list either.

Broadband
Its a stable as hell.
Dont think about uploads.
Its sooo poor i cant even send a 4mb e-mail anymore.

Internal search
its poo, that's it. Its failing lots at the mo.

It is cheaper allround if you haggel with them.
And in that light is a better deal.

For quality and service
Sky wins Hands down for +£10 per month.

Matty too geeky again straight over joe bloggs head lol

To be fair, once your out of contract with Sky, you can haggle too, if you phone their customer retention service. The retention deals arnt as good as NTL, but you can usually get things like 3 months free or 6 months half price every 12 months or so.

The problem is, Sky have a service that in general people are extremely please with, because it quite simply works, and makes no exagerated/failed promises. Mass and continous investment in research and development and market research is the reason Sky have far more happy customers and a far better reputation (as well as being actually profitable and not fearing chapter 11 bankruptcy and having takeovers and bonds for equity deals to secure their future every 5 minutes). Its a good job the cableco's in the UK are bizarre in the fact they have registed the businesses in the US, otherwise they wud have died years ago.

Which questions the viability of NTL offering such discounts to pretty much any customer who kicks up a fuss. For years NTL Telewest have kept ahold of customers by putting them on price plans with little or no profit margin at all. This is one of the contributing factors to the demise of cable television services in the UK, along with stupid investments through aquisitions at the height of the telecoms and .com boom and not enough investment or market reasearch in the services and products that matter, which is in turn caused partly by lack of funds and partly by lack of actual market reasearch - a fact proven by the old philosphy for cableco's in the UK was that market research wasnt needed and instead they just got licesnses in rundown urban area's, hoping to appeal to the masses of unemployed and lower class residents who wouldnt get through a credit check with the likes of Sky.

I have a feeling though, that if Virgin Media are to attract customers and start making profit, the huge discounts that NTL Telewest have offered to customers threatening to leave in the past will be very rare, because Branson will realise that this is one of the reasons the company is unprofitable. Remember, other then the flextech channels, Virgin have a burden of not being in control of their own content, whereas Sky own all the big channels etc...

I think a good point was made on digital spy recently, Sky are the company that have kept multi-channel digital television in the UK progressing, if it were left to the cableco's we would be so far behind the rest of the world it would be unbelieveable.

I have always said that cable has the potential to be by far the better service, bring FTTH into the equasion for instance and possibilities for bandwidth are endless. But the cableco's just do not understand the market, they dont realise profit has to be made, and they dont realise that customers expect products to work, and the companies to deliver on their promises in a timely manner.

Maybe Virgin will change things, but you can update/change the cover of a book, the words still remain the same until someone re-writes it (ie. the network, the services etc). The cableco book is about 1000 pages long, the cover has changed to a big Virgin branding atm, but they aere only just getting started on re-writing the book, there is a LONG way to go before they can become a worry to Sky.

And they have even more of a problem in the fact that Sky are starting to diversify now, with the purchase of Easynet allowing them to offer the best and cheapest broadband service by far and on top of this, the pressure being placed on BT to open up the telephone services will enable them to expand even further.

Don't forget also, that Sky's future streamed-on-demand service is only interim, until BT have completed their 21CN in 2009, by which time Sky will be able to launch their own "realtime" On Demand television service, which will run in conjunction with their existing satellite service.

+++MAJOR UPDATE+++

Virgin Media customers will LOSE the following Sky Channels at the end of February 2007:

- Sky One
- Sky Two
- Sky Three
- Sky Travel
- Sky News
- Sky Sports News

Sky and Virgin Media have been unable to reach an agreement with regards to the carriage of these channels on the Virgin Media cable tv service.

FFS I like Sky One and Three

Funny how Virgin are arguing that the channels no longer represent value for money and ar not popular anymore, yet they still list Sky One as the very first channel they advertise when trying to get customers to sign up to their television services:

Click me...

Humm i couldnt find a leave me button. lol

There raving about the on demand service in a recent
pro mo letter.

All the "TV Hits" selection is free for 3 months.

That's a massive WOW its full of Eastenders lol

Well someones switched off Sky 1 and Sky News
at 9:22pm ish

just as i was getting into 24

Looks like that games are about to begin.

Hahaha ill av a dig into this and see what I can find out, thier not supposed to go off until 1st March as thats when the agreement runs out, unless Virgin have just decided to pull the plug anyway.

Seems it may actually be an outage on the network rather then the plug being pulled... Peeps from all over the country (Plymouth, Birmingham, Manchester etc) are reporting to have lost it on DS but some are reporting that it went before but has come back.

Check to see if any of the Sky Sports channels have gone, as these are not affected by the contractual agreement fiasco, but iirc run via the same feed as the normal Sky channels.

Oh apparently, people are saying the Sky One feed tonight is lower quality then usual as though Virgin have lowered the bitrate, you noticed this webby?

Err not really,
but before it went off it stalled a few times.

SKY 2 was ok

Personally it think its virgin playing games,
so more people call sky to keep it.

I lost my internet for ages before.

They can call Sky all they want though, as Sky have nothing really to do with the end agreement, all Sky can do is recommend they move over to Sky at this present time, as Virgin don't want the Sky channels on their service lol.

Did you get the channels back yet Webby?

I think this is a bit wrong: Click me

Virgin are still advertising Sky One as being a flagship part of their service, even though they know full well that as things stand at present, they won't have it from 1st March onwards. Anybody who see's that will sign up in the belief they will get Sky One, and by the time their service is installed, it will no longer be a part of the channel lineup.

They came back, dont know what time though ??

Sky are still trying to get Virgin to negotiate, they have stated today that the original price was only an idea, and they have since lowered it to just 30% more with the view to negotiating further.

But atm it looks as though Virgin don't really want the channels as they havent gone back into negotiations with Sky as yet...

Another update on the scenario...

Sky have lowered the fee even further now, and if a deal cannot be reached with Virgin Media by the end of today, there is a good chance the channels will be off the network tomorrow.

However, Sky have also said that if they cannot agree a deal with Virgin asap, they will seek to gain direct access to the network to broadcast the channels to avoid customers who want the channels from having to miss out.

well it looks like i will be loosin out on a few channels im gonna ave to pester me dad in gettin multi room for the sky hehehehe

You never watch your NTL anyway you always moan its too slow and watch ya dads Sky lol

It looks like the channels may well be pulled at midnight as there is currently no deal between Virgin and Sky.

Sky have stated they will look to gain direct access to the cable network to provide the channels, for free, to all Virgin Media customers, if an agreement cannot be reached by the end of today, however Virgin are blocking this proprosal stating they will not let Sky have direct access to their network.

So it looks like Virgin are pretty much solely to blame if the channels disappear at midnight.

Hmmm just found this:

http://www1.sky.com/switch/

and a bit of Sky propaganda has made its way on to youtube lol:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dXy1n1_rkUQ

sneaky, very sneaky.

It's a shame virgin don't have any channels to make it a propaganda competition

sky one and the uktv channels are the only reason i have digital TV,without it i'd just use freeview

NTL / Virgin IMO have a very unsure future.
Lets see if those channels go off at midnight.

In about 10mins or in the time i make a coffee.

Lol, good excuse for a coffee. Hehe.

Sky News Frozen - Midnight

going to check the other channels

Yep, looks like its gone for everyone according to the peeps on Digital Spy.

45 seconds early apparently...

Lol!

Sky One - Gone
Sky Two - Gone
Sky News - Gone
Sky Travel - Gone

That's all ive checked.

Right this sets us up for a nice little war hoepfully...

The next cause of actions will be:

1. Sky will attempt a last try at reaching a carriage agreement.
2. If that fails they will then attempt an interim direct feed plan.
3. Virgin will almost certainly block it, leaving them at loggerheads with Ofcom.
4. Talks will go on until one of the two companies backs down.

Even if Sky get the direct tv feed, then they will still need to gain a proper carriage agreement somehow so they can get all the channels back on. So there could be a good war brewing here as to which one backs down first...

Call NTL on Cancellation line 0800 052 9403 /3

Use this number to get money knocked off your package.
You will have to wait as this is normal.
It is the cancellation number, but they are the only ones
on this number that can give you the discounts.
Customer service can not do anything.

Ive had £25 off my Bills over the last 6 months.

Now i will be calling for another reduction.

Remember to use the reference code "IM CONSIDERING GETTING SKY" and apparently their customer service goes into ultra-defensive mood and will try nigh on anything to sway your decision...

Could be a goodun for all the peeps who don't give a damn about these channels to gain a HUGGGGGE discount.

Whether you want them or not, phone up Virgin and show your disgust at loosing your fave channels (say Sky News and Sky One) and hopefully they will give into your demans for a big discount.

lol!

At the least, i'm going to change to there free view package as the TV is FREE...

Did you know there "BASE" package is the second highest
in there package range.

The Only one above the base package is the "FAMILY" package.
The names have probably changed now.

I'm going to have fun with them on the phone
tomorrow, that's if there answering any calls.

Its changed to "M", "X" and "XL" now.

Glad to see that they have finally removed Sky One from the advertised services now...

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/websales/service.do?id=1

I believe a Fair Price for a Fair Service.
I'm thinking now i'm not getting it as far at digital TV Goes

Lmao, just had a look, and the "free" (its not really cos the phoneline is £11.50 per month but there we go) channel lineup looks totally pathetic now:

Over 39 digital TV channels, including:
Virgin Central
ITV2
E4
Film4
UKTV History
Cbeebies

Which one of them other then V.Central can one not get on Freeview lol...

NTL is deffo goin and im gonna pray me dad agrees to gettin multi room for sky which i should of done in the first fookin place

Get yaself a Sky+ box lad, it will only cost you £10 extra a month, and you will get a V3 so you will be able to get Sky Anytime TV when it launches next month.

As ya mum and dad have now got Sky+, you already have a quad LNB on the dish, so it will be a faily quick and standard install for a second Sky+ box.

With the silly hours you work im surprised you havent got a PVR already anyway lol.

Call NTL on Cancellation line 0800 052 9403 /3

Just got off the phone with "Virgin Media" pmsl

According to them, i havnt lost any channels of substance.
But beacuse i'm a long term customer...

I now run at £21 for the following services.

2mb Broadband.
Base Pack (128 ch) pmsl, they got arsy when i said now count it again with out the free view and duplicate +1 Channels.
Telephone

I got £4 off them.

Dont forget with SKY you need a BT Telephone Line
And you could be charged a installation and connection Fee

So with a SKY Package Add £10 to your bill roughly.
But BT is i think cheaper than virgins line rental.

You could get Sky with ToucanTalk and it would be £29.99 per month for all that (and lots more channels of course, much better service) before any discount.

To me even if Virgin offered a plan like that as standard, it still wouldnt warrant a changeover, as for the few extra pound a month, Sky is well worth it for having a service that works and a company that knows what its doing.

All existing Virgin Media customers can almost certainly haggle with Sky now to get even better deals. If you phone them up at the right time of day, I know for a fact ye can get 6 months half price from em lol.

You could get Sky with ToucanTalk and it would be £29.99

You still need a BT Line Matty + £10

BT Could charge you a Installation Fee.
SKY could charge you a Installation Fee.
You may have to pay for the SKY BOX £50 ?

Matty you have to also make people aware of other costs,
so £26 Per Month for 3 services from sky seems good.
But lets put BT on top and you get £36 per month.
Lets put SKY + On top and it could be £46 per month.

------------
Sky is good, thats agreed, but i dont want to pay
silly amounts for TV. Broadband and Telephone are
all that intrest me. (At the moment)

If your happy to pay out £35(with sky +)or what ever a month that's fine
for you, but i dont want to throw £45 (+Telephone) a month on media.

=======================================================
So if you do decide to switch do your homeworkd first.

1. BT Line Rental Costs
2. BT Installaion Costs / Re Activation
3. SKY Installation Costs
4. SKY Box / SKY + Box Costs

=======================================================
When you add those up you can then decide if its worth it.
For a few extra quid a month?

I think you need to go away and find out what ToucanTalk is prior to posting that matey, its not a CPS

Also, are you entirely satisfied with the level of service you recieve from Virgin? Does their tv service work fast and without problems? Are the customer service fast and knowledgable? Do they deliver on promises and make sure they release working products? And do they give a damn about customers (as in the Sky channel loss case)?

The answer to that with Sky, seems to be yes, I cannot find fault with their services atm. For the few pound more (although in truth its a few pound less) it doesnt warrant such low quality service imho. People waste more then the difference in a couple of hours days...



Sky installation is free...
Sky boxes are free...
BT line re-activation is free...
BT installation is only not free if they have to send an engineer out to replace the physical line.
BT line installation when the cable is broken is free as its classed as a fault on line.

BT NEW Line = £124.99

Prices

Firstly, read this:


Usually, the only time a line has been removed is by a cable company. Almost all houses have some sort of physical telephone line from BT, unless its a brand new one.

Secondly, my mum was told by BT themselves, it was free, unless it needed re-installing, in which case it would be £75.00, but she got it down to £25.00 after stating she could have a cable line installed for that much. She got it free anyway, like I did, and pretty much everyone I know... (Not only NTL can offer discounts you know )

If we want to go by list prices, you will find that Virgin list prices are substantially beaten by Sky/Toucan services.

Take for instance the following equasions:


and for the equivalent to my package


So at standard pricing they are extremely high, hence they can offer discounts. And even compared to the standard Sky pricing, they are not overly amazing as they first seem...

And of course Sky will give the first 3 months at half price to new customers, and after you are out of contract, they will give further temporary but regular discounts like 6 months half price etc.

Sky have made a public statement saying they are available for talks with Virgin Media regarding the channels situation at any time.

In the meanwhile they have launched an agressive poster advertising campaign, which Virgin have asked for imho:

If i go to any of the removed channels
it now says. SKY has removed this channel
or words to that effect lol

Lol, propaganda from both sides it seems then.

Really is should just say the channel is not currently available or something lol.

Virgin Customers Can Cancel Even If They Are Under Crontract


So this means that even if you are still in contract, you can cease it with them. Now you can be free Scott!

Also, the National Consumer Council has slammed Sky and Virgin for the dispute affecting customers, stating the following:


To be fair to Sky they did try to go direct so customers wouldnt lose out in the short term, but Virgin are making sure they can't atm...

On top of this, Virgin have become VERY CHILDISH by renaming the following channels:


Virgin seem to be acting like its all a big game, blame Branson!!

Nice to see the money Virgin Media are saving is being spent wisely and in the interest of the customers who are losing the channel's yet still having to pay the same price... They are spending the million's on sponsoring Big Brother 8.

Wehay I bet all the VM customer's will be excited by that news!

yer that great news as i am a customer bloody idiots