Virgin Media & O2 Merger/Joint Venture Provisionally Approved

[James Martin]

Could we see an IP version of the existing TV service appear in non-cabled areas?

Would they bother putting that sort of investment into something that is possibly on its way out anyway?

Sky have yet to bother (except for Now TV) and they already have all the pieces of the puzzle, including a truly nationwide broadband network & the financial and technical backing of a company that's doing it all already

You make a good point!

I do wonder what the future holds for "multichannel television" as we've known it since 1989 - since the vast majority of these channels don't air live programmes anyway. So why not move to VOD?

Although I've got a Virgin V6 box at the moment, I'd probably be willing to live with a Freeview PVR & a Roku device if I could keep my 500MB broadband. To be honest, I only have the Virgin box a) for the PVR and b) because it came as a package with the broadband. I do have a Now TV Entertainment Pass, prinicpally for my bedroom (a) it's simply not worth drilling Virgin lines up there b) I've no coax socket and c) the telly isn't smart) but every time I try to cancel it they throw me a rediculously good offer to keep it.

And of course, most people now are actually quite happy to just have Freeview and the OTT services, which offers a choice far greater than Sky or Cable gave you in the 90s anyway. Amazon in particular, most people have via their Prime subscription already!

Ironically, it's right now YouView could really come into its own. For most people, one box that has:

• Freeview HD
  a PVR
  iPlayer
  ITV Hub
  All4
  whatever C5's VOD service is called
  Netflix
  Amazon
  Disney+
  Now TV (as it is on the Roku-based devices)
  BT Sport
  (have I missed anything apart from YouTube?)

...is geuniely all they're going to need in years to come I reckon. Sky Movies' linear channels already have a charmed life (why are they there?!) but we already know from Amazon streaming EPL matches that it's now possible to do that and not break the internet! I wouldn't be surprised if later this decade Amaazon, and maybe even Netflix, snap up a major portion of the EPL rights from Sky Sports. That'll be a huge game-changer. I'm not backing a horse on my gut, but I can't ignore the fact that there are people out there now with pockets deeper than Sky.