VIRGIN TO PULL PLUG ON 10 TV CHANNELS
MILLIONS of Virgin TV customers are set to be stripped of access to 10 channels from today. Viewers will lose access to popular shows such as Top Gear, One Born Every Minute and Only Fools and Horses because of a disagreement between Virgin TV and UKTV and it means four million customers will be affected.
The channels are being pulled in a dispute over video on demand between Virgin Media and UKTV.
UKTV is owned by Discovery and the BBC, and the latter currently holds the rights to watch its shows on demand and sells those on to services such as Netflix.
However, Virgin Media wants to get the rights alongside the broadcast channels.
David Bouchier, chief digital entertainment officer at Virgin Media, said: “From Sunday all UKTV channels and programmes will be replaced on Virgin TV.
“Virgin Media has had a long relationship with UKTV, but viewing behaviours amongst our customers are changing and we are committed to investing in the kind of programming they want to watch, whenever and however they want to watch it.
“Unfortunately, due to the restrictions put on UKTV by the BBC, UKTV is not able to provide the significant on-demand programming that we know our customers want.
“We are still in discussions with UKTV but we have already invested in an extensive collection of replacement high-quality programming for our customers to enjoy.”
Darren Childs, chief executive of UKTV, said the channels will be axed if the two companies fail to reach an agreement.
“We want to continue to provide our channels to Virgin Media, but the huge cut in fees that Virgin has requested doesn’t reflect the value we bring to customers.
“UKTV’s channels account for over a quarter of pay entertainment channel viewing within Virgin Media’s basic subscription pack, while our on demand viewing has grown by over a third in the last year.
“The money we receive from platforms helps to pay for our record investment in high-quality programmes, which we increased to more than £150m in the last year. If our 10 channels, including Dave, W, Gold and Alibi, are no longer available through Virgin, we will be hugely disappointed for the millions of cus- tomers who will lose out.
Customers are now being informed of the plan to pull the channels; however, Virgin says it will replace them with newer ones.
Customers will lose: Watch, Dave, Alibi, Really, Drama, Good Food, Home, Yesterday, Eden and Gold.
Replacement channels include the Paramount Network in HD, YourTV – a new channel which is home to Bones and Body of Proof – Love Nature, which is exclusive to Virgin TV and has nature programmes such as Africa’s Wildest Horizon’s and Great Wild Blue and IQTV, which contains quiz shows like Mastermind and The Weakest Link.