General : Virgin Media customers risk football blackout

[Mr K]

Virgin Media customers risk losing access to Premier League football matches amid a row with TNT Sports over broadcasting fees.

Executives at Virgin Media O2 are locked in negotiations with TNT, which is jointly owned by BT and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), about renewal terms for their contract.

One source said the companies were in “hot dispute” as Virgin Media was seeking a significant price reduction for the new three-year deal, while TNT is trying to maintain the existing terms. Virgin Media is understood to have argued that its cost per subscriber has risen sharply due to declining viewing figures on the channel.

If the two sides fail to strike a deal, Virgin Media customers will lose access to TNT Sports when the current deal expires at the end of July.

TNT, which rebranded from BT Sport last year, owns the rights to Premier League and Champions League football matches, as well as Premiership Rugby games. The channel, which combines BT’s sport offering with WBD’s Eurosport, also offers a host of other sports, including MotoGP, WWE, French Open tennis and this year’s Olympic Games in Paris.

It is understood that access to Eurosport is not affected by the negotiations, meaning the Olympics will still be available to viewers regardless of the outcome.

Virgin Media customers can watch TNT thanks to a so-called carriage deal between the two companies, which sees the pay-TV provider pay a fee to offer the channel to subscribers.

However, Virgin sparked anger last year when it removed the channel from its TV bundles, meaning it is now a paid add-on.

If the companies fail to renew the contract, Virgin could risk losing customers, although sources insisted that TNT could still be accessed through other subscriptions.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...remier-league/

Numbers have fallen as they've taken BT sports out of the main tv pack. This is a cock up of VMs making again.

[1701-e]

Originally Posted by Mr K

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...remier-league/

Numbers have fallen as they've taken BT sports out of the main tv pack. This is a cock up of VMs making again.

The removal from the top pack was Discovery's request

[jfman]

Indeed, Discovery are just paving the way to the low cost streaming future.

[Hom3r]

The trouble is Paramount, Di$covery & Di$ney all pulled their channels from VM, Sky etc, and put them on their own premium platform.

I used to watch NCIS on Fox, but no it was put on Di$ney, and now they are wondering why the viewing figures have dropped.

I once actually worked out how much it would cost if you bough all these premium channels and excluding VM, Sky etc it was about £120 per month

Hardly a football blackout, TNT are a small fraction of the premiership games.
Sky have the majority - I dont have TNT at all, and still manage to watch tons of football every week.

[Dude111]

Im glad your not affected Paul......

All these stupid disputes dont have to be if the networks werent so bloody greedy!!

[Stephen]

Paramount+ costs me nothing as I get it free with Sky Movies on Sky.

We pay for TNT Sport but mainly the wife that wanted it. I don't like watching Football on TV. Just not the same as being there.

[ozsat]

Discovery+ is free too from Sky and BTtv/EEtv. You get the sports channels included if they are in your Sky/BT/EE pack.

Originally Posted by Stephen

Paramount+ costs me nothing as I get it free with Sky Movies on Sky.

We pay for TNT Sport but mainly the wife that wanted it. I don't like watching Football on TV. Just not the same as being there.

[Inactive Digital]

It's difficult from that article to work out exactly what the arguments are. But, perhaps, Virgin pay a cost per subscriber but subject to a minimum annual fee/collar paid by Virgin built into the terms. So the cost per subsciber would have worked out cheaper when more customers had XL. But now VM are still paying the minimum annual fee to TNT, but with far fewer customers subscribing to the channels?

[Legendkiller2k]

Virgin media never learn from their past mistakes.

[Mr K]

Tbh I'm not that bothered about the Premiership. It was nice for National League football and Aussie cricket in winter, but I can live without it. Most of these things are free to stream anyway if you know the right places.

However it could be great leverage to get VM bills lowered come contract negotiations. I will of course tell them I'm devastated to lose TNT and mention the SKY word . Worked with the similar UKtv dispute a few years ago, discounts/compensation aplenty.

Originally Posted by Legendkiller2k

Virgin media never learn from their past mistakes.

Thats a pretty vague statement, what do you mean exactly ?

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Legendkiller2k

Virgin media never learn from their past mistakes.

What are they supposed to do?

Discovery as a content provider want to extract top dollar and are charging Sky customers £25 a month. Wholesaling it to Virgin at any price undermines their own model.

The rationale why Setanta, ESPN and BT at first were keen to wholesale because they’d fledgeling models. Fixed, guaranteed income was helpful.

[Legendkiller2k]

Originally Posted by Paul

Thats a pretty vague statement, what do you mean exactly ?

SKY, UKTV but on reflection Jfman does have a very good point in his reply to me too, maybe i was to harsh on vm.

[Media Boy UK]

Originally Posted by Legendkiller2k

SKY, UKTV but on reflection Jfman does have a very good point in his reply to me too, maybe i was to harsh on vm.

Also BT Sports did launch on Virgin - two week later then launch date.