News - Report: Sky to buy Virgin channels

[HEXUS]

The Guardian reckons BSkyB is about to buy Virgin Media?s channels business for £150-£160 million.

Read more.

[jim]

Surely that won't get through competition laws?

[Scott B]

There are still loads of other channels not owned by Sky.

[aidanjt]

The whole 'channel' concept is pretty much outmoded with modern technology anyway. All channels are going to become worthless in time.

Still, there's hardly an abundance of channels not owned by BSkyB, they already control enough of them when it comes to British broadcasting.

[jim]

There are still loads of other channels not owned by Sky.

True, but when they're weakening Virgin and strengthening Sky that only makes things worse.

[Lee H]

They might as well go all the way and rename Virgin media to Sky Cable Division and be done with it.

[crossy]

The Guardian reckons BSkyB is about to buy Virgin Media's channels business for £150-£160 million.

So does this mean that Virgin Media will finally have some money to invest in some infrastructure? (not that my VM service is bad - the broadband is very, very good). I don't see this being a good idea.

In the past two years, it seems, RTL has dropped its valuation of Five from €600 million to €100 million. That's got to chafe.

Funnily enough - given the channel lineup - if I was in charge at BSkyB I think I'd prefer to spend less money to get the Five stations. Better profile, so a wider audience to get some "quality" Sky advertising on.

An open letter from Graham McWilliam, Group director of corporate affairs at BSkyB, accuses the BBC Trust of failing to discharge its responsibility to set the Beeb's strategy. He argues that, with the commercial sector delivering more than ever, further scaling back of the Beeb's operations would best represent the interests of licence fee-payers.

To be honest, once 6Music goes, my sole BBC content consumption will be limited to the BBC News site, TopGear, the odd science prog (on BBC4) and the Saturday lunchtime comedy program on Radio4. I've noticed that the amount of BBC content that I'm interested in is falling year on year. I'd assumed that I was getting more picky, but maybe it's actually that their quality is falling! Sorry, but JLW auditions or celebs-doing-dancing/cookery shows leave me cold.

With respect to Mr McWilliam, I can't see how the interests of the license fee-payers are served by either (a) less content for the same money paid; and/or (b) forcing folks who want to use their TV's to buy Sky. Although the latter obviously benefit's Mr McWilliam and his bosses...

Bob.

[TheAnimus]

Shouldn't the government stand up to Sky via the monopolies commission?

Oh wait, its the sun whot won it. That could end badly for them.

[amdavies]

Yes, with the Murdoch Empire having won the election, I'm concerned about the state of UK broadcasting. Having the BBC there gives (in theory) a broadcaster who isn't beholden to any external source of revenue, it doesn't need to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to remain in business.
With Murdoch (allegedly) dictating the Conservative's media policies, how long is it until the BBC is stripped of anything that could possibly impinge upon Sky's absolute right to make a profit ?

[Tattysnuc]

Can someone clarify what this means?

Does this mean that SKY will buy the rights to broadcast the cable channels, or
Does this mean that they will be buying them outright from Virgin, so that they become SKY channels, and Virgin then have to license them from SKY?

I'm confused....

[davidcrofter]

And so it begins ... this was always on the cards once the tories came to power. It is obvious deals have been done and the Devil must be paid in blood (and eventually your hard earned wedge).

[tickedon]

Can someone clarify what this means?

Does this mean that SKY will buy the rights to broadcast the cable channels, or
Does this mean that they will be buying them outright from Virgin, so that they become SKY channels, and Virgin then have to license them from SKY?

I'm confused....

The latter.

I would also doubt that VM would choose to invest in its infrastructure - they are currently paying so much money in interest every quarter it's making it very difficult for them to make a profit. I imagine this will go to paying down their huge amount of debt.