Virgin Media launch more confusion

Today the UK’s number one cable operator launched a TV solution for non-cabled areas. In effect, a branded freeview box. It will be free to Virgin Media subscribers that take up the 8mb broadband and £20 phone line, or £40 for those who just take the broadband. More to come later as to whether this box has a HDD built-in.

 EDIT:- It doesn’t have a hard drive. I reckon they missed a trick there, a chance for them to offer some of their PPV content over the 8mb broadband connection that is required to have this box. As a character on one of the many shows that Virgin Media no longer have the rights to would say… D’oh.

Virgin v Sky

Over the last 72 hours the war has become very nasty. Late on Friday, Virgin announced that Sky’s basic channels (Sky One, Sky Two, Sky Three, Sky Travel, Sky Sports News) would be removed from their cable platform on Wednesday Night. This, tey say, is due to Sky’s unrealistic demands over what they feel these channels are worth.

HBO to launch On Demand in the UK

For the last couple of days, people have been searching my blog for HBO and Virgin, and I have been away from a PC thinking that this was down to Virgin’s recent rebranding exercise from NTL. But no, I missed something entirely. Virgin signed a deal with HBO to start a Video on Demand service in the UK, exclusively on the Virgin Media platform.

Virgin Media launches..

So it has begun. The proposition is the same, but the marketing will make people think something new has happened. Virgin Media launched today in a blaze of publicity, as is the style of Richard Branson. In the history of cable I never saw NTL or telewest get so many column inches over a product launch. Rather than bang on about details that you can find elsewhere, I thought I would offer opinion. I won’t be getting it.

All aboard the “On Demand” bandwagon..

Virgin, Sky and BBC all trying to get closer to their viewers. Last week Sky launched their “Anytime” product to consumers. The problem with satellite is that it is impossible to provide proper “on-demand” services, due to bandwidth restrictions. So Sky have tried to circumvent that in the past with things like multi-start a with the next best thing.

Changing Landscape of British TV

A day after confirming the new name of their cable/broadband/Telephone/mobile empire, it has emerged NTL Telewest are in talks with ITV for some sort of merger/acquistion type shenanigans.

I’m all for the merger, as long as it brings in a sea of change to UK TV, with well scripted programming combined with high production values bringing viewers back to ITV, the nations favourite TV network. Not bloody likely. Look forward to “Popstars: To the death” after “The Bill: Tyneside” followed by Ruth Rendell’s Taggarty Marple mysteries maybe solved by Poirot if Prime Suspect can’t make it. With that catchy title it can’t fail.