The Virgin Media Television thread

Elmo

Going by the Virgin Media Television promo next weeks UEFA is only available VM SPORT???

icdg

Elmo wrote: »

Going by the Virgin Media Television promo next weeks UEFA is only available VM SPORT???

They don’t seem to be showing an FTA game on VM One anymore. However RTE can still show their one game on a Tuesday, while BT Sport can show all matches.

Elmo wrote: »

Are they show any of the matches on VM Sport

No - well not exclusively anyway. The deal with EPCR is specifically for FTA coverage, BT Sport have the pay TV rights to all matches.

Andy From Sligo

Why the background so strong colours / glary / gory on the Tonight Show on VM1 ? - its shocking, makes my eyes ache and is too distracting and looks like its all CGi or something. can they not tone it down a bit ?

icdg

Caught a promo tonight that stated that Virgin Media’s Heineken Cup match is indeed Exeter v Gloucester.

deezell

icdg wrote: »

Caught a promo tonight that stated that Virgin Media’s Heineken Cup match is indeed Exeter v Gloucester.

Which I enjoyed in glorious HD on Channel 4 FTA. No Champions league at all on Virgin Media TELEVISION anymore. Thankfully the 'pool match is on Rte TELEVISION tonight. No reason to tune in to VM at all.

kooga

Just to clarify

VM1 no longer show a CL game fta anymore?

Elmo

kooga wrote: »

Just to clarify

VM1 no longer show a CL game fta anymore?

Currently no sign of them on any of the VM FTA channels.

Anyone know if the winners of IGT are getting their Christmas special

irishfeen

Is anyone here or know anyone who is watching Champions League on VMS??

I know absolutely nobody who is watching it or paid the €20 for the App.

How can this be making money for VM? (Commentators, Studio analysts, studio production etc.)

They have made a massive mistake not going down the FTA route with games, every single house with a television in Ireland will have access to VM, this is a crazy mistake.

deezell

kooga wrote: »

Just to clarify

VM1 no longer show a CL game fta anymore?

Noop. Its funny to hear the TV3vm1 announcer touting the highlights program om VM1, the sheepishily saying almost under their breath, "and you can watch the match live on Vm sport", like it's an actual TV station. Which button? How do I tune it in?
I've a good idea. I'll complain to the advertising standards about misleading and incorrect ad content. It's not another channel on the TV, they can't talk it up like it is.

icdg

It is a linear channel - if you have Virgin Media. Channel 400.

It may not show very much, but it most definitely is a channel.

Do I know anyone watching it? No. I watch on BT. If I got to a pub to watch a game, it is almost invariably BT that will be on. This is because the commercial base is overwhelmingly on Sky, with few choosing Virgin. I’m sure there are Virgin customers who do watch it. I doubt there are many non-VM customers who pay the €20 to stream it though.

irishfeen

icdg wrote: »

It is a linear channel - if you have Virgin Media. Channel 400.

It may not show very much, but it most definitely is a channel.

Do I know anyone watching it? No. I watch on BT. If I got to a pub to watch a game, it is almost invariably BT that will be on. This is because the commercial base is overwhelmingly on Sky, with few choosing Virgin. I’m sure there are Virgin customers who do watch it. I doubt there are many non-VM customers who pay the €20 to stream it though.

You would wonder how long VM are going to try this? It has the smell of the Eamon Dunphy Show v The Late Late Show.

And If anything it’s going to get worse next year for VM when sky takes control of the BT pack, Sky Sports is everywhere and VM won’t get a look in anywhere!

Tigerandahalf

I wonder will those BT channels be sublet by Sky next year.
I think if they offered both Sky Sports and BT sports on Now Tv they would attract a lot of subscribers. Pricing it right is the key thing.

It doesn't help that a lot of these apps need chromecast to function. It pushes people away especially when you are tied to a phone to work it.

I'd love to see Now Tv launch on freesat but would you be able to use the app if it was locked to the uk? Some of them are locked like Rakuten.

You would think Virgin would have been much better off to go after the BT channels and completely cut out their own costs. I guess Sky outbid them.

iseegirls

Even the highlights last night was awful. We had the first 25 mins dedicated to Liverpools group. This was overlapping with 15mins of RTE discussing Liverpool's match. The Spurs Barcelona match only came on about 40mins into the highlights package. Sounness already stated earlier during the highlights of Liverpool that it's great to see Liverpool and Spurs through - completely giving away the result later on, which I managed to avoid the result until that time.

lertsnim

deezell wrote: »

I'll complain to the advertising standards about misleading and incorrect ad content. It's not another channel on the TV, they can't talk it up like it is.

Do make that complaint and let us know how it goes.

TheRedDevil10

Trying to watch the Larna v Leverkusen game which is not on any the main Sport or 6 Extra channels.

According to this: https://www.virginmedia.ie/virgin-media-sports/ the game should be available to watch on the app, but can't see any option on it to see the extra games ?

mikeym

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/champions-league/virgin-unclear-as-to-how-they-will-broadcast-champions-league-1.3496548

I know its an old article but the managing director thought at the time this was great for Tv3 viewers.

“This landmark deal confirms Virgin Media as Ireland’s leading connected entertainment business and is great news for TV3 viewers and Virgin Media Customers,” said Pat Kiely, managing director of TV3.

I suppose they did pay €80 million for the rights and they have to claw back the money somehow.

Btw will Virgin be showing any FTA matches in the Last 16 of the Champions League?

deezell

mikeym wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/champions-league/virgin-unclear-as-to-how-they-will-broadcast-champions-league-1.3496548

I know its an old article but the managing director thought at the time this was great for Tv3 viewers.




I suppose they did pay €80 million for the rights and they have to claw back the money somehow.

Btw will Virgin be showing any FTA matches in the Last 16 of the Champions League?

What do you think? They had the opportunity to promote their new brand and channels as a serious contender to mainstream FTA, they could still have packaged it into their vm sport channel for their cable customers and as a novelty pay per view stream for others on ordinary broadband.
The CL is now down to a few knockout matches. Not enought to lever €20/month from anyone, but definitely enough to have kept tv3/vm1 and its spawn at least in the running with the other broadcast stations. Instead, you're left with a suite of trivial low quality (content and picture quality) offerings which have lost any appeal they once had. Ad revenues must be dismal.
With the exception of a couple of repeat episodes of the cruise ship programme, and the few CL matches, I haven't watched TV3 since.
Sport organisations should temper their greed too. People forger that the surge in popularity of the pro 12 was due in large to it's infiltration into homes FTA via TG4. It and the Heineken cup were very much for rugby heads at the time, but now look at the surge in popularity of this once minority sport. Yet, the greed factor has driven most fixtures on to pay TV, and now interest and attendances are slipping. You can't have your cake and eat it, and others need a reasonable taster of it as part of their TV dinner to even stay tuned in, let alone pay a sub. It's like dessert on a set menu, you'll partake because its included, but will forego if it's an a la carte add on. I think VM have a lot of empty tables this minute.

Elmo

Virgin Media’s FTA channels have held on to a steady 17% of the audience, due largely to ITV programming. Virgin Media basically tested the water of putting the matches behind a paywall by airing champions league’s Tuesday early match, it proved unpopular but also that Virgin Media one, TWO and THREE can survive without.... however perhaps the Wednesday night match would have grown the audience even further.

Maz2016

Elmo wrote: »

Virgin Media’s FTA channels have held on to a steady 17% of the audience, due largely to ITV programming. Virgin Media basically tested the water of putting the matches behind a paywall by airing champions league’s Tuesday early match, it proved unpopular but also that Virgin Media one, TWO and THREE can survive without.... however perhaps the Wednesday night match would have grown the audience even further.

Fair point, but if VM ever lost the soaps and the rest of the itv content - they would be screwed.

mikeym

Elmo wrote: »

Virgin Media’s FTA channels have held on to a steady 17% of the audience, due largely to ITV programming. Virgin Media basically tested the water of putting the matches behind a paywall by airing champions league’s Tuesday early match, it proved unpopular but also that Virgin Media one, TWO and THREE can survive without.... however perhaps the Wednesday night match would have grown the audience even further.

As far as I can see the Champions League Semi Finals and Final will be shown FTA.

Wow thanks Virgin ye are a sound bunch of lads.

Half the country cant get your cable service and nobody will pay €20 a month to see the matches on a phone/tablet.(season pass would have been a better option)

Elmo

Maz2016 wrote: »

Fair point, but if VM ever lost the soaps and the rest of the itv content - they would be screwed.

They’ve got them secured until 2026 at least.

See what happens in the NY guessing also the semis and final only.

mikeym

Elmo wrote: »

They’ve got them secured until 2026 at least.

See what happens in the NY guessing also the semis and final only.

Rte will still be able to show a live game on Tuesdays?

deezell

mikeym wrote: »

Rte will still be able to show a live game on Tuesdays?

Yes, they still have first choice.

iseegirls

Elmo wrote: »

Virgin Media basically tested the water of putting the matches behind a paywall by airing champions league’s Tuesday early match, it proved unpopular...

I don't think it proved unpopular, but that the matches on offer at that time were very poor. No Man Utd, Liverpool available. They ended up with 2 games featuring English sides, 1 game with no English side, and then dropping it completely as no other English side would play in a 6pm kick off for the rest of that slot.

The move of Emmerdale from 7pm to 8:30 did see their figure go down a lot, and during the CL matches, T6OCS did move to VM2, bringing whatever hundreds of viewers that has.

They should have placed the other 6pm matches on VM2 though.

It's really an unknown for the knockouts what VM1 will show.

icdg

None of the teams that made the last 16 play in the Moscow Time Zone, so all games from here on in will be 8pm KOs and a max two per night. (Welcome to the Champions League Round of 16, the only knockout round of any sporting competition that takes five weeks to play).

But for VMTV, I’m not sure it will make sense for them to try and run a game right up against RTE on a Tuesday, particularly with RTE having first pick, and each English team playing on a different night.

lertsnim

Can VM show a game FTA on Wednesday instead?

icdg

I don’t see why they can’t.

I seem some reasons why they might not want to (the whole reason for putting the FTA games on the same night as RTE was to ensure exclusivity* for VM Sport on Wednesday night).

*VM keeping up the pretence that BT don’t exist, of course.

Elmo

icdg wrote: »

I don’t see why they can’t.

I seem some reasons why they might not want to (the whole reason for putting the FTA games on the same night as RTE was to ensure exclusivity* for VM Sport on Wednesday night).

*VM keeping up the pretence that BT don’t exist, of course.

Even on an exclusive basis it makes no sense. I assume and I could be wrong that the new kick of times are for audiences in CET, 6:55 KO allows for people to get home from work or down to the pub. I assume that this means those teams in GMT have a main KO time of 8pm.

These means VMT are shooting themselves in the foot in terms of audience numbers.

Elmo

Remember that time when TV3 said their St. Stephen's Day News was normally scheduled.

its_steve116

Elmo wrote: »

Remember that time when TV3 said their St. Stephen's Day News was normally scheduled.

Was that the day it broke the news about a certain finance minister?