The Virgin Media Television thread

Nonoperational

icdg wrote: »

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.

Me too. I tried hard to stick with horizon, it's just so terrible. Have VM BB and Sky Q. I used to have Virgin TV, Virgin BB and Sky with a viewing card activated by Eir so I would potentially have everything that way, but horizon just isn't worth it.

EdgeCase

I even prefer Eir and Vodafone TV interface to Horizon and they're quite basic.

tsue921i8wljb3

EdgeCase wrote: »

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.

According to this they have passed 100000 new homes in the past two years, with another 100000 due by 2020, so I think saying they spend "feck all" is a tad harsh.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2018/0627/973590-virgin-media-broadband/

political analyst

Does it not occur to Liberty Global that "3 is a magic number" (as anyone who watched the launch of TV3 20 years ago may recall)?!

deezell

So this Virgin subscriber sports channel, will it be the case that TV3/Virgin will confine the pick of their sports acquisitions to this channel only? Is the end of FTA champions league, 6 Nations? More likely they will continue to serve up FTA on the sub standard sd Saorview, with HD confined to the sport channell.

Tigerandahalf

deezell wrote: »

So this Virgin subscriber sports channel, will it be the case that TV3/Virgin will confine the pick of their sports acquisitions to this channel only? Is the end of FTA champions league, 6 Nations? More likely they will continue to serve up FTA on the sub standard sd Saorview, with HD confined to the sport channell.

I'd say that is exactly what they will do. 6 nations has to be fta.
Thank goodness for bbc/itv. People will switch over in droves.

icdg

Sindo has a bit on the sports rights:
-Champions League Final, Europa League Final, and Heineken Cup final to air on Virgin Media One (I still expect all Heineken Cup games that they have the rights for to air on the FTA stations)
-Deal with UEFA is for all European Qualifiers and Nations League games except for those involving the Republic of Ireland.
-Channel may be available on other platforms at a price (that is completely contradictory to what they said during the week).
-They will be using Adsmart to target advertising

irishfeen

icdg wrote: »

Sindo has a bit on the sports rights:
-Champions League Final, Europa League Final, and Heineken Cup final to air on Virgin Media One (I still expect all Heineken Cup games that they have the rights for to air on the FTA stations)
-Deal with UEFA is for all European Qualifiers and Nations League games except for those involving the Republic of Ireland.
-Channel may be available on other platforms at a price (that is completely contradictory to what they said during the week).
-They will be using Adsmart to target advertising

I suppose they could have meant that Virgin Sport will be exclusive to VM customers so technically if they have a channel on Sky or whatever then if you subscribe you will be a VM customer.

If they keep the channel exclusive to the VM platform then it cannot last with the vast majority in the country unable to get virgin broadband - it would be a complete waste of time.

EdgeCase

Valentino Tangy Wench wrote: »

According to this they have passed 100000 new homes in the past two years, with another 100000 due by 2020, so I think saying they spend "feck all" is a tad harsh.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2018/0627/973590-virgin-media-broadband/

All of which are urban - filling in holes left by Chorus/NTL in places like Cork City and adding significant towns that were left un-cabled by their predecessors.

Meanwhile, you're looking at OpenEir doing a commercial FTTH rollout to 300,000 rural / quasi rural homes over the same period.

I have yet to see Virgin spend anything in areas that are not 'low hanging fruit'.

CATV and FTTH are actually also quite suited to ribbon development as they are not necessarily radial networks like DSL technologies that rely on a star topology with an exchange / cabinet at the centre. You can run a fibre or even coax trunk along a road, and tap people into it. So, technologically speaking, they're well placed to serve some of those harder-to-reach areas with broadband issues, but they haven't really attempted to do that.

I also notice that Virgin Media Ireland roll their UK projects spending into the Irish press releases. As if that's relevant at all. It's just indicative of Ireland having gone from UPC Ireland being quite a strong local presence, to Virgin Media Ireland just being a small branch office of the UK operation.

https://www.virginmedia.ie/about-us/press/2018/virgin-media-announces-landmark-figure-of-900-000-premises-now-passed/

The announcement forms part of Virgin Media’s Project Lightning, which is the single biggest private investment in digital infrastructure in Ireland and the UK in more than a decade, delivering ultrafast fibre broadband to an additional 4 million premises across both countries, to reach a total of 17 million homes and businesses. The total investment being made by Virgin Media’s Project Lightning is the equivalent of approximately €3.42Bn (£3Bn) over the term of the programme.

I mean, you might as well tell me about the great rollout of broadband by Ziggo in Utrecht.

Great, they're spending money, but it's €1 billion by Liberty over 10 years and it's very targeted at dense areas.

Over the past decade, Virgin Media’s parent company, Liberty Global has invested over €1Bn in its Irish operations and next generation network infrastructure. Its current investment programme Project Lightning is delivering a network that is future proofed to bring a host of new services to homes and businesses in the years ahead including high quality gigabit internet speeds.

OneEightSeven

EdgeCase wrote: »

I have yet to see Virgin spend anything in areas that are not 'low hanging fruit'.

CATV and FTTH are actually also quite suited to ribbon development as they are not necessarily radial networks like DSL technologies that rely on a star topology with an exchange / cabinet at the centre. You can run a fibre or even coax trunk along a road, and tap people into it.

The thing is, there's no money to be made in those areas. One-off housing is very heavily subsidised by urban homes. These homes require numerous telephone poles plotted on private land which Eircom/ESB et al have to rent from farmers, so it costs more money to provide these homes with telephone/broadband. In urban areas, lines are mostly underground and less prone to damage, so maintenance costs less. This is why private companies won't touch them and Eircom wouldn't either if it wasn't for the USO.

So, technologically speaking, they're well placed to serve some of those harder-to-reach areas with broadband issues, but they haven't really attempted to do that.

Those homes don't have broadband issues, Ireland has issues with one-off housing due to the government allowing people to build homes wherever they wanted. In Germany, they ban planning permission for homes more than 1 km outside of urban areas because of the stress they put on infrastructure.

Tigerandahalf

OneEightSeven wrote: »

The thing is, there's no money to be made in those areas. One-off housing is very heavily subsidised by urban homes. These homes require numerous telephone poles plotted on private land which Eircom/ESB et al have to rent from farmers, so it costs more money to provide these homes with telephone/broadband. In urban areas, lines are mostly underground and less prone to damage, so maintenance costs less. This is why private companies won't touch them and Eircom wouldn't either if it wasn't for the

Not true. The esb don't rent anything. The farmer has to give free access.

EdgeCase

This is what I'm getting at though. Why is one (recently bankrupt) company with falling market share being lumped with the cost of the USO.

I'd rather see it done right, with proper burden sharing across the entire industry. If we're ever going to have this whole broadband / telecoms situation resolved, it's not going to be done by just letting market forces self-regulate and pretending and imagining that Eir is still going to behave like a semi-state and do things in the national interest.

Anyway, it's OT, but I think if Virgin Media Sport is going to be carrying important games, it should be made available on Saorview with a C+ card if it's going to be subscription, or at the very least as an individual subscription for streaming online.

Otherwise, you're in a new situation where by a sports channel is cable-only and exclusive to towns and cities only.

Tigerandahalf

I'd agree re broadband rollout. I feel the state should have taken ownership with a plan to finish the country in 5 years like the esb network and then levy a fee on all private companies (virgin, eir, sky) to pay back the cost.

tsue921i8wljb3

EdgeCase wrote: »

Meanwhile, you're looking at OpenEir doing a commercial FTTH rollout to 300,000 rural / quasi rural homes over the same period.

It can be argued that Openeir have only conceded to do this rollout because of the NBP. They saw their rural customer base under threat and reacted accordingly. Their agreement with the Department and subsequent withdrawal from the NBP has completely stymied the process. We are now left with one bidder with little to no rural infrastructure who will have to try to infill areas left behind by eir.

UPC/ Virgin showed no interest in being part of the NBP and when you see how it has transpired I think that has proven to be a wise business decision. It's simple business logic that you would build in the most profitable areas first.

tsue921i8wljb3

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Not true. The esb don't rent anything. The farmer has to give free access.

Are farmers not paid something like €20000 per pylon on their land by the ESB?

Tigerandahalf

Valentino Tangy Wench wrote: »

Are farmers not paid something like €20000 per pylon on their land by the ESB?

Not if the poles are for their own access to the network.
Pylons are a different matter as they take up a huge amount of land in comparison to a pole and are for interconnection which is key infrastructure.

EdgeCase

Telecoms infrastructure is *far* less intrusive than MV and HV power lines.
You're only talking about a few fibres running along the road in most cases and it has no need to go cross-country. It just follows the roads.

So it would mostly be going into land that's in the public realm and it's also not as big a deal to install as there are no issues around electrical safety and so on.

icdg

Can we take the infrastructure discussion to another thread (and forum) please

Elmo

I assume that Virgin Media Sport takes the place of eir Sport as part of their basic package. With it as an additional channel on other platforms

mike2084

icdg wrote: »

Sindo has a bit on the sports rights:
-Champions League Final, Europa League Final, and Heineken Cup final to air on Virgin Media One (I still expect all Heineken Cup games that they have the rights for to air on the FTA stations)
-Deal with UEFA is for all European Qualifiers and Nations League games except for those involving the Republic of Ireland.
-Channel may be available on other platforms at a price (that is completely contradictory to what they said during the week).
-They will be using Adsmart to target advertising

Link to above story:
https://www.independent.ie/business/media/rebranded-tv3-to-offer-targeted-ads-on-new-virgin-sports-channel-37067273.html

Tigerandahalf

mike2084 wrote: »

Link to above story:
https://www.independent.ie/business/media/rebranded-tv3-to-offer-targeted-ads-on-new-virgin-sports-channel-37067273.html

Interesting article there also on the indo about a levy on uk broadcasters broadcasting into Ireland.
https://www.independent.ie/business/media/uk-broadcasters-to-face-levy-in-ireland-after-eu-rule-change-37042549.html

icdg

Nothing to do with TV3 either but feel free to start a new thread on that one, it’s got potentially very far reaching implications for pay TV in Ireland

Maz2016

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Interesting article there also on the indo about a levy on uk broadcasters broadcasting into Ireland.
https://www.independent.ie/business/media/uk-broadcasters-to-face-levy-in-ireland-after-eu-rule-change-37042549.html

Thanks for the links , good reads.

“Virgin One, now TV3, will continue to carry sport and will add a new 8pm evening news bulletin.”

So, the 8pm bulletin is going to be on TV3 then. Wonder how that will work on nights where the soaps are on for an hour, nights when there is a match or programmes such as got talent on. Might have made more sense to put it on 3e
5:30 tv3
7:00 be3
8:00 tv3
10:00 be3

I wonder is this too much news? Considering it’ll be repeating the same stories

political analyst

Maz2016 wrote: »

Thanks for the links , good reads.

“Virgin One, now TV3, will continue to carry sport and will add a new 8pm evening news bulletin.”

So, the 8pm bulletin is going to be on TV3 then. Wonder how that will work on nights where the soaps are on for an hour, nights when there is a match or programmes such as got talent on. Might have made more sense to put it on 3e
5:30 tv3
7:00 be3
8:00 tv3
10:00 be3

I wonder is this too much news? Considering it’ll be repeating the same stories

Maybe they'll drop the 7 o'clock bulletin. Furthermore, there's no indication of whether Thursday night's second half-hour of Emmerdale will be moved on account of the proposed 8 o'clock bulletin.

icdg

icdg wrote: »

Sindo has a bit on the sports rights:
-Champions League Final, Europa League Final, and Heineken Cup final to air on Virgin Media One (I still expect all Heineken Cup games that they have the rights for to air on the FTA stations)
-Deal with UEFA is for all European Qualifiers and Nations League games except for those involving the Republic of Ireland.
-Channel may be available on other platforms at a price (that is completely contradictory to what they said during the week).
-They will be using Adsmart to target advertising

Hmm, does this mean then that all their CL & EL games before their respective finals effectively disappear behind a paywall (moved to Virgin Sports) if you don't have access to the Virgin Media platform? Leaves people with only the reduced number of games on RTE available as FTA before the finals. This rebranding is definitely not to be welcomed by the majority I suspect that want access to UEFA soccer competitions in the RoI.

The Cush

icdg wrote: »

Sindo has a bit on the sports rights:
-Champions League Final, Europa League Final, and Heineken Cup final to air on Virgin Media One (I still expect all Heineken Cup games that they have the rights for to air on the FTA stations)
-Deal with UEFA is for all European Qualifiers and Nations League games except for those involving the Republic of Ireland.
-Channel may be available on other platforms at a price (that is completely contradictory to what they said during the week).
-They will be using Adsmart to target advertising

No mention of the Nations League in that particular article, to date we have no official confirmation which Irish channel will broadcast the Rep. Ireland Nations League games other than that Sky have the UK rights, maybe they have the Irish rights also?

He revealed TV3 has also done a deal with CAA11, the representatives of Uefa in international football, which gives TV3/Virgin the rights to all competitive European international football outside of Republic of Ireland matches, such as qualifiers for the Euros and World Cup.

iseegirls

Maz2016 wrote: »

Thanks for the links , good reads.

“Virgin One, now TV3, will continue to carry sport and will add a new 8pm evening news bulletin.”

So, the 8pm bulletin is going to be on TV3 then. Wonder how that will work on nights where the soaps are on for an hour, nights when there is a match or programmes such as got talent on. Might have made more sense to put it on 3e
5:30 tv3
7:00 be3
8:00 tv3
10:00 be3

I wonder is this too much news? Considering it’ll be repeating the same stories

I guess they need to do something about RTE1s Nine O'Clock News, which is such a ratings beast. Maybe having the news at 8, TV3 will hope then that Irish viewers would have enough news for the rest of the evening and not switch over.

No mention of Xpose last week, which the news will be taking their current slot. So might be looking bad for that programme.

The relaunch day of a Thursday is weird. I can only presume that is the date of their Autumn schedule launch.

Elmo

iseegirls wrote: »

I guess they need to do something about RTE1s Nine O'Clock News, which is such a ratings beast. Maybe having the news at 8, TV3 will hope then that Irish viewers would have enough news for the rest of the evening and not switch over.

No mention of Xpose last week, which the news will be taking their current slot. So might be looking bad for that programme.

The relaunch day of a Thursday is weird. I can only presume that is the date of their Autumn schedule launch.

I think this is the plan

5:30 News
6:00 TSOCS
6:30 Xpose
7:00 Emmerdale
7:30 Coro St
8:00 News
8:30 Coro St

question over 8pm edition of Emmerdale but TV3 could prob move it to 8:30 or 7:30.

I guess that be3 will lose either the 10 or 7 news slots can't see them keeping them

8pm News sandwiched between Coro St will give their news a significant boost and that time slot will be boosted, any time either TV3 or UTV Live ran a news special it got good viewers at 8, and that audience at 8 might be more inclined to stay with a news.

Tigerandahalf

Don't think a news slot is needed there. The people watching soaps wouldn't be really interested in that content and would be more likely to channel switch. Having good catchup tv should be the biggest concern so people can watch them whenever they want.

Tv3/Virgin claiming the same number are watching Love Island on demand as linear and their app wouldn't be user friendly or on near enough platforms.

I wonder will it eventually force their app onto saorview connect.

icdg

I’d have thought that the goal would be to launch the sports channel on or around 21st August for the Champions League play off round.

One of the issues they had with that 8:00pm News before is that it clashes with the European football. That won’t be an issue of course if all the football is on the sports channel.