The Virgin Media Television thread

Should ITV sell to comcast, Virgin Media might be happy to let VMTV go if comcast were to make an offer, while also gaining access to ITV broadcast channels.

I assume that VMTV have agreements in place with ITV into 2034 (seeing as the last deal was 10 years and would have finished this year, and renegotiated last year).

It was separate deals. VM had first choice while Livescore showed the rest. That deal finished after 2023/24 season

Since then Premier Sports have taken on the rights to all games, with first choice one night. RTE have first choice on the other night. Virgin show the non first choice games each week

Well spotted. I hadn’t noticed that. I did see that VM More didn’t air the second Champions League 5.45pm kick-off this evening when normally they would. It struck me as strange. They are airing an 8pm kick-off this evening though, so I guess we’ll have to wait till next week to see what’s going on.

Tried the url for last year's christmas channel and found this

https://play.virginmediatelevision.ie/live/1294

No mention of VM Four or VM More. VM Sport hasn't existed in 3 years. They don't have the Europa League any longer. That VM Solutions page is so out of date as well. They still list Elaine as a programme that can be sponsored.

That's a great find, odd that it's hidden at the moment. It wouldn't work me on my phone, but can view it on laptop which is another oddity.

Virgin Media More schedule on Saturday now just states Virgin Media - To Be Announced on https://www.virginmediatv.ie/ . The schedule also removed from https://www.virginmediatelevision.ie/tv-guide despite it still being on until Friday night at least.

The Virgin Media More EPG listing from Saturday onwards now simply says Virgin Media. The programme description says “Bringing the best in television”. I wonder might the channel go back to being the barker channel it originally was, with rolling promos all day?

how is Brian doing still on the six o’clock show, he’s brutal , Darren Kennedy way better

Looks like the channel is no more, albeit would anyone actually miss it? I'd rather they took off VM4 as well. However, I may as well do a few stats about it.

It started on the 12th April 2022, and first show was Graham Norton's written drama Holding. Followed by The Virtues and Love Island SA.

Programmes that only ever aired on VM More were Engineering The Future, Beyond The Spotlight, La Fortuna, Fear The Walking Dead, C*A*U*G*H*T, Human Error, After The Party, The Way, Hairy Bikers Go West, Transaction, Austin and Optics.

Strangest one was Fear The Walking Dead where they showed the first 2 episodes, and repeated them on the same night after midnight. And then suddenly disappeared. Never to be shown again despite being promoted on the channel at the time. Maybe it was the shock of having something on the channel that wasn't related to ITV.

Specials

Most specials shown are dominated by sport seeing it was sport repeats from 1pm-9pm daily:

215 times - Classic European Cup: Liverpool v Roma 1983/84, 190 - Rio Ferdinand's Between The Lines: Luka Modric, 164 - UEFA Champions League - A Short History, 160 - Classic European Cup: Manchester United v Benfica 1967/68

VMTV's Sport Stories repeated an awful lot too:

127 - Nina Carberry, 105 - Damien Delaney, 99 - Paul McGrath (2 Parts), 90 - Joe Brolly (2 Parts)

Outside of sport, specials like Dublin After Dark (10 times), Antisocial Ireland (9), The CAB (8) featuring heavily.

Films

VMTV have retreated from film rights ever since the name change. The entire VMTV channels have only showed 4 new films (films that they never aired before) in 2025 so far. On VM More, they showed such ITV 2-parter shows like Appropriate Adult (4), Code Of A Killer (5), The Stepfather (4).

Sports

Replaying sports was a key feature to their daytime. Highlights of the Six Nations feature heavily with Women's Six Nations 2024 clash between England v Ireland shown 63 times, and Ireland v Scotland (54) of the same year. In Champions League, they loved replaying the same 4 games from pre-VM Sport days - Juventus v Real Madrid from 2018 - (46), Man Utd v Bayer Leverkusen 2013 (when Moyes was manager) - (38), Man City v Liverpool 2018 (31), Man Utd v Bayern Munich 1999 (19).

Programmes

VM Sport shows that were basically produced during Covid-19 still played a dominant role throughout VM More's schedule. Messi: Greatest Games had 9 episodes - some with Irish commentary which is funny as it's clearly recorded in 2020 over such games like a 2011 match when TV3 didn't air the matches. The 2011 final: Barca v Man U shown 93 times. UEFA: Defining Moments 3-parter shown 604 times (1st ep - 229, 2nd ep - 200, 3rd ep - 175). UEFA: Man In The Middle 4-parter shown 496 times (1st-4th are 145, 128, 115, 108 times).

Outside of the Sports programmes, Born To Kill (96), Rectify (88), The Voice USA (85), Schitt's Creek (82) in total. Individual episodes has Holding ep1-4 shown 10 times each, Redemption episode 1-6 shown 9 times each.

Of course some of those numbers are not definite, as air dates can change in the last minute. But there you have it, and that's one less channel for me to document. 😅