I suppose, its because not that it bothers me that much but Virgin TV is all I can actually get. bar now tv of course.

BT infinity isn't in my road as there is no BT cabinet. it's fed directly from the exchange.

I have a youview box so that covers spike. In reality given I had a 4K tv say. realistically If i wanted BT sport 4k AND sky atlantic / full suite of sky channels in HD i would need BT TV AND either sky/virgin.

surely that cannot be right.

believe you me if infinity and sky were available I'd get it for said channels. but I am quite happy with Virgin media.

The whole exclusitivity for atlantic really has worn off now, why aren't sky launching it? I suppose it forces people like me to get NowTV.

I am also knarked at BT for blocking stuff on the youview platform. perfect box capable of full now tv but sky are on the brink of pulling out of that platform all together. Shame because for someone who might be freeview only it would be a very viable and flexible solution, would be for me. juggling boxes and HDMI leads.

You're missing the point. People have chosen to pay for Virgin Media's TV service rather than other options including Sky and Freeview. Therefore they shouldn't have to rely on getting a second TV service just to receive mainstream channels such as Channel 5's Spike.

Suggesting someone should buy a second DVR is ridiculous, and as I don't have a TV aerial I'm not about to have one installed, when I have chosen Virgin Media for my TV.

I do agree when you pay out all of that money every month to Virgin Media the least you would expect is to get everything on Freeview.

What is your source for saying that BT is blocking stuff (presumably stuff =live channels) on YouView? I'm not sure this is correct as BT don't control YouView which has to be a neutral platform.

Agreed. You can understand the odd channel not being on there but to not have both Spike or TruTV sets the wrong tone; subscribers should not need to look outside the platform to view these channels.

i agree.... it's cable tv, it should have more stuff than any other platform.
it's pathetic and sports biased.
i don't have a bt line, to get sky internet or an ariel for freeview, these are the only reasons i've not quit the inadequate vm...

of course it is right..
have you ever wondered why certain brands are not in lidl or aldi
or why brands that are in asda & tesco & sainsburys do not have the same range of flavours in those brands...

because the world is not as you think it is... and suppliers and the content owners choose how they wish to sell to the end customer... so if you want all the writers that appear in the guardian, the mail, the sun and time magazine you have to buy them all not get them all from one supplier.. and if you want all the flavours unilever's knorr do, you have to go to more than one supermarket...

this is competitive advantage and the content wars are going to get worse not better..
especially as youtube, amazon prime & netflix are looking at exclusive shows ("top gear 2" being a major headline) and while sky have gone back to protecting "atlantic" for their sky & now brands VM have managed to get "bt sport & sky sports" as their selling point... this is actually a big "tell" than you may think of where they are aiming.. these are "premium" channels... i.e virgin are happy to lose low spending low take up of products customers and aim for the premium end that spend more. bt likely know that they cant (yet, as bt sports in uhd is an interesting move) and so let virgin bundle sports in on their xl pack but not the lower packs.. those lower pack customers bt clearly think they can take from vm... and vm from their stated aims in the annual reports made it clear they wanted to target 3 and 4 play customers and increase average spend... so vm are likely happy not to compete with talk talk or basic services low margin customers... so vm are aimed high... sky of course are dominant and have "sky" aimed at the premium customer and "now" at the pay as you go customer..

sadly, selling points will "channel towards a group more than another" but that is the market they think they can make work..

if they are not suitable, then dont keep buying marmite for your toast if you dont like marmite, it wont taste like jam and isnt aimed at people who prefer jam far more than marmite... you have to buy appropriately to your needs because there will always be, always be, differentiation in order to have competitive advantage... competing in price alone is never good for any service or industry, it becomes a race to the bottom where industries start to fail... (see work by harvard's porter for more on that)

vm may not be what you want if you are not a bigger consumer of their products.. and as with all venn diagrams a minority will find themselves not served locally by an ideal mix of alternative suppliers who are "generally available" that are more to their needs - geography & demographics are not a "constant" either but variable and so "build out" of services are not universal and never will be. (again, not every product stocked by tesco appears in all their stores - they can be restricted to only specific areas or specific store sizes...)

"Deer Virgin Media, I pay you a lot of money each month so I want you to give me all the channels I want".

Dream on.

Oh do I know what you mean; and I'm sure that the channel will appear on VM at some point.

Well Said

Yet Sky were forced by OFCOM and The Courts to make some of their Sports Channels available to other platforms. So it is not the same Free Market as your comparison to the supermarket's, you probably could not have chosen a worse analogy. The Pay TV Market is one of the most heavily regulated markets in The UK &Europe.

dont mix those channels with general, it doesn't scale.... and some things are legally ringfenced.. eg the need of BT to have a "free to air" channel for some football matches they have the exclusive rights to

more proof my understanding of vm business plan is right... remember when vm decided to no longer compete with the low end "off cable" customers by flogging their adsl based customers to talk talk? they are not interested in heavily investing for the lower spending clients - those customers are nice to have (as they might upgrade) but they are not worth chasing. they have done the maths. there will be channels that remain exclusive, bt are using amc, sky are using atlantic, vm are using sky sports & bt sports bundle as "better with us" options.. and the few landmark cases you gave are not scaled across all possible channel wants - just as amazon & netflix are showing with exclusive access to specific content.
as i said with the supermarkets... aldi & lidl do not get many brands because the likes of tesco / asda & sainsburys told them not to supply them.. and other "products" in some ranges are often "exclusive" to one chain even though the rest of the range are found in all supermarkets. that is how the world works.

I agree all providers have their unique selling points but supermarket shopping is different. Most people these days would shop between supermarkets for what they want but with TV the average person (although I have done in the past) wouldn't have 2 or 3 providers for their TV so that they could get the best from each service. They either want Free TV or Pay TV and I think that all channels should be available to everyone depending on which channels they are willing to pay for. I know that would only happen in an ideal world but they could make it simpler by making content providers separate from the platforms i.e. Sky & BT.

A new channel called yourtv starts on 1 October 2015. It will be "made available on a variety of platforms". As per MB blog this may include VM:

http://foxinternationalchannels.com/...inment-channel

There is also speculation that the owners of the National Geographic Channel are to launch a free version of their channel. It should be noted that, as yourtv will be showing some National Geographic Programming, some believe that they are one and the same channel. Nobody knows for sure yet.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=uk

They are one and the same, both the FOX International Channels press release and the Broadcast article state that the new free-to-air channel will be called YourTV. FOX International Channels is the owner of National Geographic Channel. It looks like a UK version of FOX Life / Nat Geo People, but as it's for the free-to-air market they're not using either of those Pay TV brands, just like Discovery with Quest. Given that neither Spike or TruTV have launched on Virgin Media, I wouldn't get your hopes up for this.

So basicly looking at it, its showcasing shows that have been on the pay channels ie NG and fox, as well as additional new one.

At the risk of being off topic - may I point out that anyone who receives TV via an Aerial by definition has Freeview all UK broadcasts are Digital all free to air channels are part of Freeview.

the key difference here though that people are missing the point.

one assumes you have access to everything. If you dont you are indeed forced with one item.

if we talk about papers and shops, what if I dont have a sainsburys in my area that sells me the mirror?

Point im making here is that its fine for those who can access everything.

Not the best analogy really as the odds are that you will have a shop that can sell you your paper of choice.

But I know what you're getting at

Just found out that The Craft Channel are in talks to be carried by Virgin Media.

This channel is due to start at 8am 0n 14/9/15.

Carriage agreements are in place for Freeview, Freesat and Sky.

And yet still no UniversalHD

points made....
As said not all virgin customers have a aerial to have freeview channels or have PVR to record those channels that virgin does not have .
Virgin should have ALL basic channels that are on national TV networks.

Also BT youview does not block any content from Sky's Now TV or Sky store only blocks you may see are from non payments to those services or any BT TV channels you many not pay for in your package...........

But would add that BT TV customers have many of the channels I listed that Virgin does no have .....

but it does go the other way around too..

Virgin has spent large on sports channels over the last years and this is the same with BT TV and Sky in the past.

I feel that after the moves on the EPG over the last year I hope that virgin are about to give a better deal for it's TV customers in giving all these and other channels in the next few months.......
- Spike
- HISTORY HD
- QVC+1 HD
- Hochanda
- Rocks & Co
- TJC Choice
- 4/7 HD
- 4+1 HD
- QVC Beauty HD
- AMC SD
- AMC HD
- TruTV
- Universal HD
- Lifetime HD
- E! HD
- Crime & Investigation HD
- Disney Channel HD
- Disney Junior HD
- Disney XD HD
- Boomerang HD

ahh no

in terms of content BT youview does not block, it is at present blocking (because it is part of the youview board) sky from launching a full nowtv. It's been widely known, to the extent sky are even thinking about pulling out altogether. Makes sense.

Why would BT allow it? when BT sells sky sports itself? Sky have even said it themselves via their community forums.

Which is very annoying for those of us who don't watch any of it. Especially as we have had to pay for it instead of them all being premium channels as they should be.


One can only hope!