Virgin media v Sky One I am disgusted with the way we have been treated by Virgin Media?

Question

They have made no attempt to communicate with customers, no attempt to keep us advised of what is happening. They did not even have the courtesy to tell customers they even took over NTL/Telewest.

Now we have lost some of the best channels, sky one and Sky news. How many people will stay with Virgin now, what will happen when another contract comes up for renewal that they dont like.. will we the customer lose out yet again...

What do you think and will you stick with Virgin Media.

To Luddite you are very lucky to have had so much info, we received nothing and were never informed that Virgin had taken over, or that we would be losing channels.

Answer 1

I am a cable customer (Telewest). When Virgin took over I was bombarded (no exaggeration) with bs about how wonderful they were and how my life would be enhanced. Glossy stuff from St Richard of Branson about how wonderful Virgin would be. The first effing thing they do is find a way of losing me Sky News - the best instant news service on TV. Unbelievable! I have watched Sky News all round the world - I saw their brilliant Tsunami coverage when I was in South Africa and have seen them on TVs on every continent. And now I can't watch it in my own home. Branson is a jerk, a liar and a cheat.

Answer 2

Terribly sorry you were not kept informed. I was by letter from NTL, Virgin Media, as well as by news programmes on the radio.
Regarding your opinion that Virgin took over NTL, it is more like a name change only.
NTL bought Virgin Mobile, and because NTL had a poor (though much improved) customer service reputation, they negotiated with Virgin over the change of name. In the mobile deal Richard Branson was given an amount of NTL shares, I imagine a huge
amount, and as his companies have a good customer service reputation, what was called NTL/telewest are now in the process of improving services along the Virgin style. It has also given the company a spokesman in the name of Richard Branson, which it never had previously.
A Sky spokesman told a radio 4 programme that it would 'only cost 3p extra a day for each Virgin Media customer. That is £99,000 per day, £36,135,000 a year extra.
You probably wouldn't mind paying 3p per day extra, but that wouldn't be fair to all the Virgin media customers who do not watch the Sky channels much.
Virgin Media and Sky could come to a deal, whereby Virgin customers could buy these none premium channels, but it would clearly cost you far more than 3p per day, because a lot of customers wouldn't want to pay.
Remember Sky is also removing it's channels from Freeview, to provide them under a payment scheme. There has been no dispute with Freeview.

Message for BIG DAVE the dispute is on the home page of www.virginmedia.com under the heading 'fair play'

Answer 3

Firstly, Virgin HAVE made many attempts to contact customers. I for one have had about eight different letters telling me that Virgin Media have taken over NTL/Telewest - maybe your postie has pinched all of yours? Also, you'll notice that everything on what used to be Telewest has been rebranded with the Virgin name and if you have rebooted your box since they took over you'll notice that JK and Joel are now there trying to be funny when you restart and explaining that the company is now VIrgin. To say they didn't tell their customers that they'd taken over is wrong and misleading.

Re: The Sky situation, if you go into one of the channels (515 on Telewest) you'll find an explanation (and quite a funny one at that - they've renamed the channel which used to be Sky Sports News to Old Sky Sports Snooze). The message points out that Sky don't want to play anymore and have taken their ball and gone home - and that is certainly how their actions come across after trying to involve their customers in a bullying tactic to phone Virgin and jam their switchboards with calls saying how great Sky channels are to try and force their hand in the negotiations.

I don't like Sky's tactics, which is one of the reasons I will stay with Virgin. But more importantly, I'm not that bothered about their Sky channels. Virgin Media owns the Flextech channels which include LivingTV, Challenge and Bravo (I think) and if I had to choose between LivingTV and Sky One, I'd choose Living every time.

Sky is basically throwing its weight around and trying to lure customers from Telewest back to Sky and we, as customers are stuck in the middle. Its been said that Sky would need 150,000 customers to sign up with them to cover the money they would have got from Virgin to show their channels. Is that feasible? I also think they've overestimated how important Lost and 24 are to people. I have no problem in downloading shows from the internet or waiting and getting the box set when it comes out and I think quite a lot of people would probably just do the same.

Virgin have said they hope to replace the missing channels with better ones of their own which may or may not happen so maybe we just have to wait and see?

(Sorry, didn't mean to write such an essay!)

Answer 4

I am not a Sky, Telewest or Virgin media user, but I have been aware of what has been going on with all the adverts that Virgin Media have put in the press.

Sky have pretty much a monopoly, and want to protect it, Murdoch sees Branson as a big threat, and is doing anything he can to stop him. Not only has he pulled the Sky channels from Virgin, but he also bought a big stake in ITV simply to stop Branson merging the two channels.

Murdoch wants no competition, and he is the one who has engineered this situation, this has been his tactics since the 50's as a newspaper owner in Australia where he was nicknamed 'The Dirty Digger'

Murdoch is the reason why I choose not to have Sky, but I am tempted to join Virgin Media, especially if Branson can challenge Murdoch's malignant influence on British media.

Answer 5

I had a letter months ago and a shiny brochure advertising why it would be great with Virgin Media. Frankly the customer service can't be any worse than it was with NTL anyway!
I'll be sticking with it rather than going to Sky - I only used Skyone to tape Lost for other people anyway so it doesn't affect me not having it.
I'll do anything to avoid putting money in Rupert Murdoch's pockets...

Answer 6

i will stick with virgin as i feel sky are trying to hold virgin to ransom purely because richard branson has a part in the new company. also with regards not informing customers we recieved letters throughout the process and virgin didnt take over ntl/telewest, rather ntl/telewest bought virgin mobile and have decided to trade under the virgin name. sky for too long have held the monoply on cable/sattelite tv and its about time someone stood up to them

Answer 7

I'm a former Telewest customer and had plenty of communication from Virgin and am pleased they stood up to Sky. Sky were being greedy and to be fair their channels aren't of much interest to me.

Answer 8

I have been with Telewest for yrs but recently my bills have been ridiculous! I phoned them and was informed they were now called Virgin Media. Anyway, I told them i was struggling to pay my bill every month. They then said i could top up my tv channels therefore giving me 3 for £30 a month (tv, phone, broadband). I asked why someone couldnt have done this in the first place................no reasonble answer! I am happy to stay with them if my bills stay low, but they are a bit ignorant.

Answer 9

I absolutely have Virgin Media for telephone, television and broadband. i wanted to modify to Sky yet my buddy has in simple terms lengthy gone by an entire heap of aggravation replacing to Sky. She has now lengthy gone decrease back to Virgin. The Virgin V field does an similar as Sky + so why go by the hell of fixing once you could in simple terms improve to the further appropriate Virgin V field. They both have poor client provider and hidden prices. it really is only a case of "extra appropriate the devil you comprehend" so a recommendations as i'm in touch. in case you do substitute and then pick to modify decrease back, you've 8 days to inform them. not one of the "programs" are affordable interior the top as they're in effortless words effortless . once you register, you ultimately end up with the extras including up. no longer some thing is ever loose. you'll pay by some means.

Answer 10

I don't think that they have kept everyone up to date with any progress, but they have made everyone aware of the situation, but is that really enough?

Sky 'vs' VM just seems like a school yard squabble. 'He said, she said, they said' all they seem to care about is who's fault it is.

Mr Branson is forgetting the first rule of business - if you don't look after your customers, someone else will!!!!

I'm not happy about the tactics sky have used, but they can offer the service I want and at a fair price (except HDTV).

Apart from the recent issues over sky one etc, VM offered a superior package and sky have been aware of this. Mr Branson would have been far better off agreeing to sky's terms and then luring sky's customers away with superior service and quality!