The Virgin Media Television thread

icdg

bennyl10 wrote: »

Intersting to see the price point for it also..
They've already confirmed that the Heinieken cup will be FTA, would imagine they'd do the same with the champions league..

It's a good tool to combat the eir/sky for eir sport/bt switchers though

The rights that they have got for the Heineken Cup are specifically for FTA - that was the whole point of EPCR selling that package. BT have the pay TV rights to all games.

Champions League has no FTA protection though I would have assumed that at least one match will be aired on the FTA network.

iseegirls

It's going to be interesting where shows are placed. Will we see a direct copy of TV3 to VM1, 3e to VM2, be3 to VM3.

The new 8pm bulletin. Where would that fit in, and does that remove be3's existing 7pm and 10pm bulletins.

Also I'm sure Coronation Street and Emmerdale will remain on their top channel, so having a stripped 8pm bulletin across the week is impossible with Emmerdale broadcasting on a Thursday at 8, along with the numerous changes when soaps move places, especially when BGT and I'm A Celeb are on. Plus there will be Champions League coverage, which I again presume will be on their main VM1 channel.

Will be intriguing.

Tigerandahalf

They might stick the champions league on wednesday nights on a free channel but in SD. Otherwise they will have very little viewers.

The value of the eir broadband/bt sports package will be highlighted even more now especially for dwellers who can't get decent broadband.

icdg

Didn’t they have an 8pm News before for a little while and then axe it? Did I imagine that one?

lertsnim

This is one of the most pointless rebrands in history. What happens if down the line Virgin Media want to sell the television channels?

stephend2000

lertsnim wrote: »

This is one of the most pointless rebrands in history.  What happens if down the line Virgin Media want to sell the television channels?

I'm pretty sure they know that they are stuck with TV3 now. There's no hope in selling!

Elmo

Those logos but at last they've moved News to 8pm

political analyst

icdg wrote: »

Didn’t they have an 8pm News before for a little while and then axe it? Did I imagine that one?

You are right - there was an 8pm bulletin on TV3 in the period in which TV3 had temporarily lost the Emmerdale and Coronation St rights to UTV Ireland.

An Ciarraioch

Virgin have no plans to increase their network coverage, it would seem:


https://mobile.twitter.com/VirginMediaIE/status/1012335643391819778

Elmo

political analyst wrote: »

You are right - there was an 8pm bulletin on TV3 in the period in which TV3 had temporarily lost the Emmerdale and Coronation St rights to UTV Ireland.

And UTV Live should have aired at 8 not 5:30

dublinman1990

The announcement of the sports channel probably puts the retention of the Eir/BT Sports Channels back onto Virgin Media off to bed. But with only football & rugby rights they have announced so far for subscribers of this channel & free to air viewers; what else have they got to show for it to make it's presence worthwhile. Acquiring sports rights here with this channel now in this market from August 30th will make the intention of nabbing sports rights very watered down for subscribers in the future.

People in rural Ireland who live in farmhouses, small villages and remote areas of the country alike probably cannot ever get any access to this new channel at all if Virgin Media were offering it to the Irish public as part of a VM subscription. Most of rural Ireland only get proper access to foreign sports on TV via Sky/BT and FreeSports on FTA Satellite because, apart from Saorview, it is by far the most reliable form of TV signal here in this country. If they don't want Sports with their TV; Saorview is only option for Irish channels.

What happens in a scenario when only one provider here only gets access to one set of sports rights only available to a certain section of the population while alienating the rest of the country in doing so. This is what VM have done here in setting up this new channel for their subscribers. They are the only perpetrators here in beginning to worsen a trend among many sports broadcasters & subscribers based here in Ireland by giving themselves an unfair advantage with the potential of alienating many parts of the country who want to pay for sports access through other legal means. I know the amount of new football rights on this new channel is quite substantial meaning a lot of games to their new viewers. But large parts of the country won't be able to access these sports at all unless they have a VM subscription in their possession.

VM last year alienated large portions of their subscribers in removing access to the Eir/BT Sports pack on their service a long time ago. The amount of negative publicity they got from those affected by the move was quite nasty if you look at online social media. How many of those customers would actually want to return to VM if they have this new channel included as part of their portfolio? They have also had other problems as well with the Horizon box having the worst ever usability performance from TV subscription customers in Ireland, they have one of the worst customer service reputations in this country and also their broadband is not too good either with having their customers broadband speeds being throttled on services like Netflix.

This sport channel being included of becoming a big PR disaster for Virgin. I won't be one of those people who will give sympathy once they go out of this country once and for all. They are a joke since they had overtook the cable operations from UPC in Ireland.

EdgeCase

lertsnim wrote: »

This is one of the most pointless rebrands in history. What happens if down the line Virgin Media want to sell the television channels?

More importantly, what happens when Virgin Media gets sold off or Liberty does yet another rebrand. They can’t seem to consistently stick to one branding strategy at all.

There’s still rumors of Liberty being bought out by Vodafone. In which case, do we end up with Vodafone One, Two etc ?

TV3 is also at this stage a major Irish iconic brand, far more so than Virgin Media is.

Even the name “Virgin Media” doesn’t exacrly roll off the tongue.

Sam Russell

EdgeCase wrote: »

More importantly, what happens when Virgin Media gets sold off or Liberty does yet another rebrand. They can’t seem to consistently stick to one branding strategy at all.

There’s still rumors of Liberty being bought out by Vodafone. In which case, do we end up with Vodafone One, Two etc ?

TV3 is also at this stage a major Irish iconic brand, far more so than Virgin Media is.

Even the name “Virgin Media” doesn’t exacrly roll off the tongue.

That should clear the decks for RTE to look for RTE 3 HD instead or RTE Plus, so they can show their archive and repeat shows. They need to get RTE 2 to work, but they need a channel they can get more ad revenue from.

If VM can have four channels, then so should RTE.

Tigerandahalf

Sam Russell wrote: »

That should clear the decks for RTE to look for RTE 3 HD instead or RTE Plus, so they can show their archive and repeat shows. They need to get RTE 2 to work, but they need a channel they can get more ad revenue from.

If VM can have four channels, then so should RTE.

But going HD means more fees.
I think rte really need a sports channel. Look at how often sports programmes are broken up by a news bulletin or some other thing. The world cup games on rte news now is a missed opportunity to have the 2nd live game in hd running along the main game on rte2.

If they ran repeats of the gaa, soccer, etc they would still get good figures as many people want to catch up but don't have broadband.

lertsnim

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

If they ran repeats of the gaa, soccer, etc they would still get good figures as many people want to catch up but don't have broadband.

People generally don't watch repeats of live games.

EdgeCase

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

But going HD means more fees.
I think rte really need a sports channel. Look at how often sports programmes are broken up by a news bulletin or some other thing. The world cup games on rte news now is a missed opportunity to have the 2nd live game in hd running along the main game on rte2.

If they ran repeats of the gaa, soccer, etc they would still get good figures as many people want to catch up but don't have broadband.

Saorview would want to snap out of charging more fees for HD. It's a minority platform that has very little going for it and it could innovate a lot on HD and 4K if it wanted to. It's not like it's struggling with too many channels to fit in or something!

political analyst

Elmo wrote: »

And UTV Live should have aired at 8 not 5:30

UTV Ireland's news was "Ireland Live".

Sam Russell

EdgeCase wrote: »

Saorview would want to snap out of charging more fees for HD. It's a minority platform that has very little going for it and it could innovate a lot on HD and 4K if it wanted to. It's not like it's struggling with too many channels to fit in or something!

That can only be achieved by changing the rules for charging, or changing the definition of SD. The second might be possible by the Minister ordering it, but otherwise, it needs a change to the Broadcasting Act.

political analyst

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

But going HD means more fees.
I think rte really need a sports channel. Look at how often sports programmes are broken up by a news bulletin or some other thing. The world cup games on rte news now is a missed opportunity to have the 2nd live game in hd running along the main game on rte2.

If they ran repeats of the gaa, soccer, etc they would still get good figures as many people want to catch up but don't have broadband.

Getting to see the second live game in SD is better than not getting to see it at all.

lertsnim

EdgeCase wrote: »

Saorview would want to snap out of charging more fees for HD.

TV3 can thank nobody but themselves for the way fees are charged now.

mikeym

Its all about promoting the Virgin Media brand.

Getting more people to sign up for the Broadband and Tv.

Delta2113

dublinman1990 wrote: »

The announcement of the sports channel probably puts the retention of the Eir/BT Sports Channels back onto Virgin Media off to bed. But with only football & rugby rights they have announced so far for subscribers of this channel & free to air viewers; what else have they got to show for it to make it's presence worthwhile. Acquiring sports rights here with this channel now in this market from August 30th will make the intention of nabbing sports rights very watered down for subscribers in the future.

People in rural Ireland who live in farmhouses, small villages and remote areas of the country alike probably cannot ever get any access to this new channel at all if Virgin Media were offering it to the Irish public as part of a VM subscription. Most of rural Ireland only get proper access to foreign sports on TV via Sky/BT and FreeSports on FTA Satellite because, apart from Saorview, it is by far the most reliable form of TV signal here in this country. If they don't want Sports with their TV; Saorview is only option for Irish channels.

What happens in a scenario when only one provider here only gets access to one set of sports rights only available to a certain section of the population while alienating the rest of the country in doing so. This is what VM have done here in setting up this new channel for their subscribers. They are the only perpetrators here in beginning to worsen a trend among many sports broadcasters & subscribers based here in Ireland by giving themselves an unfair advantage with the potential of alienating many parts of the country who want to pay for sports access through other legal means. I know the amount of new football rights on this new channel is quite substantial meaning a lot of games to their new viewers. But large parts of the country won't be able to access these sports at all unless they have a VM subscription in their possession.

VM last year alienated large portions of their subscribers in removing access to the Eir/BT Sports pack on their service a long time ago. The amount of negative publicity they got from those affected by the move was quite nasty if you look at online social media. How many of those customers would actually want to return to VM if they have this new channel included as part of their portfolio? They have also had other problems as well with the Horizon box having the worst ever usability performance from TV subscription customers in Ireland, they have one of the worst customer service reputations in this country and also their broadband is not too good either with having their customers broadband speeds being throttled on services like Netflix.

This sport channel being included of becoming a big PR disaster for Virgin. I won't be one of those people who will give sympathy once they go out of this country once and for all. They are a joke since they had overtook the cable operations from UPC in Ireland.

Every year they win awards for best broadband. Netflix channel on Horizon box. Sports channel will be a success.

colm_mcm

Delta2113 wrote: »

Every year they win awards for best broadband. Netflix channel on Horizon box. Sports channel will be a success.

The competition is catching up though, fibre to home is becoming more of a norm now, and VM customers are complaining about the same issues on Horizon since it was launched, as well as the same gripes with the broadband for years too.
The biggest advantage of Netflix on the Horizon box is that it requires no broadband subscription whatsoever.

icdg

As I say if Virgin Media Sport gets a killer app the preferred combination might become Virgin TV and eir Broadband, the only combination which gives access to all sports channels. But in doing so they might actually lose some broadband customers who currently have eir Sport on satellite and Virgin for broadband only.

Right now though I see nothing on VM Sport that’s not available somewhere else, be it FTA, Sky Sports or BT. That’s lucky for me as I’m in the odd position of not having access to an eir landline, only a VM cable connection - I’m one of those with Sky TV and Virgin Broadband who’ll never be able to access this channel.

Ireland trains

Will the 3 news keep the same name or will it change to some new name

irishfeen

Ireland trains wrote: »

Will the 3 news keep the same name or will it change to some new name

VM News almost certainly.

political analyst

Sam Russell wrote: »

That should clear the decks for RTE to look for RTE 3 HD instead or RTE Plus, so they can show their archive and repeat shows. They need to get RTE 2 to work, but they need a channel they can get more ad revenue from.

If VM can have four channels, then so should RTE.

I don't think the proposed VM sports channel, if it goes ahead, will be on Saorview, to be honest.

political analyst

irishfeen wrote: »

VM News almost certainly.

Whenever government ministers and gardaí host press conferences, "Virgin News" will probably be mistaken for a TV equivalent of Spirit Radio.

irishfeen

VM Sport Channel is to be exclusive to Virgin Media which is ridiculous when the vast majority of people have no access whatsoever to Virgin.

EdgeCase

The very least the could do is launch a modernised, over-the-top IPTV version of Horizon and start selling "off-net" access using OpenEir and Siro.

OpenEir's launching "Supervectoring" which brings shorter lines up to 200-250mbit/s over copper and has 1000mbit/s on fibre and Siro's 1000 mbit/s so, it would extend Virgin's TV reach enormously, if they could be bothered. They wouldn't have to sell the product in areas where they do have a network.

Obviously, this wouldn't entirely resolve the % of households that are effectively "off grid" when it comes to broadband services, but it would extend their coverage to a lot of non-cable towns, villages, bends in the road that have an FTTC cabinet or FTTH.

Or, could they start selling some decent channels via Saorview and a C+ card as a top-up-TV type package.

I kind of find the way Virgin just cherrypicks the lucrative urban areas while expecting Eir to pick up the hard-to-reach spots a little unfair. I'm not usually someone who'd defend Eir, but it does seem to be quite unreasonable that a cable operator is allowed to just stick to areas that were covered in the 1970s, spend feck all on expanding their network and then for some reason all the unprofitable bits are left to Eir to fill in.

It's not really fair competition and it's also not going to encourage national rollout if the most lucrative areas are like a separate market entirely.