Own Goal

I subscribe to Virgin Media (Formerly Telewest) and as of midnight tonight I will no longer be able to watch Sky One due to Sky's predictable corporate greed.

They wanted Virgin to pay twice what it already was for the package Sky One was in whilst halving the amount they paid for Flextech channels (Living, UK Gold etc.) at the same time.

This is all part of the Sky masterplan to get all cable customers to switch to Sky Digital. They've already denied cable Sky Sports subscribers their interactive content (Which includes additional matches for Champions League Football and NFL) and won't put any of their HD channels through cable. I'm surprised they haven't switched the feed to black and white.

What Sky have obviously ignored though is that over 1 million households are no longer capable of viewing their prime-time shows, so their advertising revenue is going to take an enormous hit. If they're expecting them all to switch over for the sake of 'Lost' then they're sorely mistaken. Some might but most people that choose cable do so because:

They don't want a dish outside their property
They aren't allowed a dish outside their property
They don't want to feed the Murdoch empire any more than they have to.
They prefer cable.

The only Sky One show that is currently watched in my household is 'Battlestar Gallactica' so we'll either do without, wait for the whole series to come out on DVD or find an alternative supplier over the internet.

As a seperate example of Sky's greed, apparently they're withdrawing their freeview channels to offer new pay-as-you-watch channels instead. The only thing is they're going to broadcast them in MP4 so existing freeviewers will have to cough up for a new box as the existing ones aren't compatable.

On behalf of all non-Sky Digital viewers I'd like to say:

Fuck you Rupert!