Digital TV Blog

And now for some good news. Sky channels including Sky1, Sky News and Sky Arts 1 will be making their welcome return to the Virgin Media TV platform next Thursday, the 13th of November, following the resolvation of carriage fee disputage thanks to a pair of freshly inked deals worked out between the two UK pay-TV platforms.

It has been announced, following a kiss and make up (represented by our picture, right) that Sky’s Basic channels – Sky1, Sky2, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 – will return to Virgin Media’s cable TV service, with Virgin Media’s basic channels, that is, Living, Living 2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Trouble, Challenge and Virgin 1, becoming part of Sky’s TV channel roster.

Virgin Media’s CEO, Neil Berkett, said: “We are pleased to bring our carriage negotiations with Sky to a successful close. I believe this agreement represents a fair deal and is the right thing for our customers. We recognise the quality and popularity of Sky’s channels and look forward to welcoming them back to Virgin Media’s TV service. We are also pleased to secure Sky’s continued carriage of the VMTV channels until June 2011.”

Jeremy Darroch, Sky’s CEO, chimes in with: “This is great news for Sky and Virgin Media customers alike. We want our channels to be enjoyed by as many people as possible so we’re delighted to secure their return to the Virgin Media platform.”

The deal sees Sky getting Living, Living 2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Virgin 1 and Challenge included with their Variety channel mix, and kids TV station Trouble becoming available on the Children’s mix. The Virgin Media channel breakdown is as follows:

Virgin Media TV Size: M

Sky3
Sky News
Sky Sports News

Virgin Media TV Size: L

Sky1
Sky2
Sky3
Sky News
Sky Sports News

Virgin Media TV Size: XL

Sky1
Sky2
Sky3
Sky News
Sky Sports News
Sky Arts 1
Sky Arts 2
Sky Real Lives
Sky Real Lives 2

Both deals will run concurrently until 12 June 2011; the agreements include fixed annual carriage fees for the channels with both channel suppliers able to secure additional capped payments if their channels meet certain performance-related targets.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Digital TV. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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