The Virgin Media Television thread

deezell

lertsnim wrote: »

Virgin will still be showing a FTA game every week. Granted its the same night as RTÉ but we will still get the same number of games FTA.

But not the premium 8.00 pm Wednesday night match. Instead, an earlier, Tuesday, probably non premiership fixture, and in a FTA quality that makes last years TV3 efforts look like blue ray. The bit rate on VM's champions league last week was so low that when the pitchside signs came to life with a burst of ads, the picture froze and stuttered. The extra data required to broadcast the ad content blew the fuse.
They want a payday for Wednesday night simple as, and they will endure any abuse as long as the subs start rolling in.
I wish TG4 would go HD, it's the only source of pro14, and its only there because the Irish only commentary means it not in conflict with Sky. I'm sure HD would not breach terms.

lertsnim

lertsnim wrote: »

Virgin will still be showing a FTA game every week. Granted its the same night as RTÉ but we will still get the same number of games FTA.

True, but as iseegirls points out, their wednesday evening ratings may take a serious hit. Not good for commercial channels.

icdg

To be clear, the 5:55pm slot is no longer reserved for Moscow Time kick offs, everyone can potentially play there. Manchester City, Liverpool, and Spurs will all have games in the 5:55pm slot; for some reason Manchester United do not. The likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, PSG, Athletico Madrid, Real Madrid, and Juventus will all have games at 5:55pm. It’s not a “minnows slot”.

deezell

So they may show a more attractive match in their early FTA Tuesday slot, but they have the Wednesday 8pm slot pretty much to themselves. They could of course put a less attractive fta match out at 8.00, but this would affect marginal sales of the streams, viewers who would be satisified with a bit if decent footy regardless of participants. Its about the money, and the large number of people staring at the screen in Wednesday wishing they could watch something, anything with a ball in it. They may yet create a fta live roundup program, lots of studio analysis and live updates, goals when they occur, (or just the celebrations afterwards). Such a program is designed to tease and torture sports fans into parting with subscription cash to feed the craving it creates. They've paid a stack for these rights, they've met any FTA obligations such as they are, whats left is theirs to profit from. VM are not your friends. I'll spend my sport's cash on an occasional trip to the rds or the aviva, and my local club first team fixtures. Works for me.

Tigerandahalf

Champions League/Uefa are shooting themselves in the foot with this.

Live viewership in the UK has fallen hugely, so much that ITV's Wednesday highlights show was pulling in more viewers. Those selling their ads won't be happy with this.

This is only encouraging more piracy. Too many platforms.

Putting at least 1 game on fta is the sensible thing to do and let people pay if they want access to all games.

Many have access to eir/bt and with the rugby and champions league now on it, virgin will only lose more broadband subscribers. The only thing stopping a haermorrage is that many people don't have a viable alternative to virgin broadband. I expect eir to cave in and offer unlimited broadband to pull away virgin customers.

lertsnim

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Champions League/Uefa are shooting themselves in the foot with this.

BT paid 1.2 billion pounds for their rights. UEFA will be ok. How many countries have any FTA games? We are very fortunate to have two every week.

iseegirls

icdg wrote: »

To be clear, the 5:55pm slot is no longer reserved for Moscow Time kick offs, everyone can potentially play there. Manchester City, Liverpool, and Spurs will all have games in the 5:55pm slot; for some reason Manchester United do not. The likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, PSG, Athletico Madrid, Real Madrid, and Juventus will all have games at 5:55pm. It’s not a “minnows slot”.

If you look at the upcoming 6pm games - they are clearly a minnows slot. Virgin Media One only can choose 1 out of 2 games for those, with RTE2 having an option to choose from 6 games on those Tuesday evenings.

Apart from this Tuesday, as I'm sure UEFA wanted Barcelona to start off the 6pm matches, there is very little to choose from after that.

Matchday 2: VM1 6pm: Hoffenheim v Man City or Juventus v Young Boys
RTE2: Man United v Valencia
VMS on Wed: Napoli v Liverpool, Spurs v Barcelona

Matchday 3: VM1 6pm: AEK v Bayern or Young Boys v Valencia
RTE2: Man United v Juve
VMS on Wed: PSV v Spurs, Liverpool v Red Star

Matchday 4: VM1 6pm: Red Star v Liverpool or Monaco v Club Brugge
RTE2: Spurs v PSV or Inter v Barca
VMS on Wed: Juventus v Man utd, Man City v Shaktar

Matchday 5: VM1 6pm: AEK v Ajax or CSKA v Plzen
RTE2: Man United v Young Boys or Lyon v Man City
VMS on Wed: PSG v Liverpool, Spurs v Inter

Matchday 6: VM1 6pm: Shalke v Lokomotiv Moscow or Galatasaray v Porto
RTE2: Barca v Spurs or Liverpool v Napoli
VMS on Wed: Valencia v Man United or Man City v Hoffenheim

So the 6 FTA games on VM One on a Tuesday will possibly be:
Inter Milan v Spurs
Hoffenheim v Man City
AEK v Bayern
Red Star v Liverpool
AEK v Ajax
Shalke v Lokomotiv Moscow

No Real Madrid, Man United, PSG, Barcelona, Juventus = low ratings. Only the Red Star v Liverpool match will have any minor sort of impact.

batistuta9

Can they block BT from showing the games in Ireland?

icdg

Not for the length of this TV deal.

batistuta9

How come?

Edit: so BT got non exclusive rights before them

icdg

In a word, yes. There’s a few pages on this very thread about it a while back. But essentially, BT have non-exclusive rights in Ireland too.

MikeyTaylor

VM needs a music show.

Mickey Mike

MikeyTaylor wrote: »

VM needs a music show.

Caint Coel agus Craic

Andy From Sligo

was I dreaming earlier on or are they showing a compilation of TV3 best bits from the last 5 years or something?

icdg

icdg wrote: »

Not for the length of this TV deal.

Until 2021, but a potential spanner in the works for us here in Ireland is that the current Eirsport/BT arrangement is due to end next Summer.

icdg

I’d imagine that, even then, the only circumstances that would see the BT showings blocked would be if they entered into an arrangement with Virgin instead. For a variety of reasons I see that as unlikely - I think that if BT exit the eir deal (possible) it will be to allow Sky to wholesale.

Maz2016

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

was I dreaming earlier on or are they showing a compilation of TV3 best bits from the last 5 years or something?

Yeah they are. Wednesdays episode of gogglebox is as normal. It’s on again on Thursday night showing programmes over the last 20 years on tv3. Should be good as there was a lot of shows we have forgotten about.

ArmaniJeanss

sugarman wrote: »

Again, the draw is completely random! They'd no way to know who was playing who at the allocated times until the draws were made.

Not strictly true - the groups and fixture order were random, but the kickoff times aren't. For example none of the 12 English home ties are in the early slot, something unlikely to happen if the selection were random (it's probably to do with the early slot being an hour earlier in the UK than it is in the rest of UEFA, so it would mess with work/commuting).

So clearly the early games are 'picked', though on what other criteria we don't know. But that half the English games can't ever be in this slot definitely means they will be on balance less attractive for an Irish audience.

icdg

icdg wrote: »

I’d imagine that, even then, the only circumstances that would see the BT showings blocked would be if they entered into an arrangement with Virgin instead. For a variety of reasons I see that as unlikely - I think that if BT exit the eir deal (possible) it will be to allow Sky to wholesale.

Would upset alot of people no end that subscribed to Eir broadband to get the BT sports channels at no extra cost. Otherwise people are looking at forking out an extra 20 a month for all the Champions League football on Virgin Media Sports if they can't get access to Virgin's own platform. I'd expect Eir to make a big effort to extend the current agreement, in order to have a good pitch to continue to sell their broadband products.

Andy From Sligo

Maz2016 wrote: »

Yeah they are. Wednesdays episode of gogglebox is as normal. It’s on again on Thursday night showing programmes over the last 20 years on tv3. Should be good as there was a lot of shows we have forgotten about.

blimey 20 years is it really ... i remember watching TV3 startup I think.

citytillidie

This shows the chart of kick offs and where is likely to have early kick offs

deezell

Mickey Mike wrote: »

Caint Coel agus Craic

Watch it with the Irish.

The Cush

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

blimey 20 years is it really ... i remember watching TV3 startup I think.

IIRC it opened with an episode of the mini-series Merlin with Sam Neill.

Andy From Sligo

The Cush wrote: »

IIRC it opened with an episode of the mini-series Merlin with Sam Neill.

when i say I remember it starting up I mean when it really started up with the colour bars and a countdown from 10 to zero and then announced "this is TV3" - memory might be sketchy but i think ronan keating and some other woman opened it up. must try and see if clip of it somewhere on youtube or somewhere.

Do you remember a young Grainne Shoga on TV3 news (or whatever her name was) and people being obsessed with her hair

political analyst

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

when i say I remember it starting up I mean when it really started up with the colour bars and a countdown from 10 to zero and then announced "this is TV3" - memory might be sketchy but i think ronan keating and some other woman opened it up. must try and see if clip of it somewhere on youtube or somewhere.

Do you remember a young Grainne Shoga on TV3 news (or whatever her name was) and people being obsessed with her hair

It's Gráinne Seoige.

political analyst

I remember reading this in 2002 - what a farce!

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/station-red-faced-after-airing-of-explicit-film-26026782.html

Andy From Sligo

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

blimey 20 years is it really ... i remember watching TV3 startup I think.

I found this on youtube, not sure if it was their fist ever day of broadcasting

remember the tune? "3 is the magic number! ..."

L1011

3 is the magic number was played at shutdown until the rename over a barely edited sequence

icdg

The only thing that ever changed was the logo at the very end, which was updated at every rebrand. Everything else was the same as the original 1998 sequence. So it came to pass that the first thing ever played on TV3 was also the last.

MikeyTaylor

deezell wrote: »

Watch it with the Irish.

I'm sure the likes of Wild Youth would LOVE to have their videos played on TV.