October 23, 2007

More from Berkett on his likely Virgin Media strategy

Interesting piece in the FT today on Berkett stepping up his campaign to be made permanent CEO at Virgin. Berkett appears to be suggesting that if he gets the job he may be more concilliatory towards Sky; "fighting the gorilla in its home zone was silly". There's not many customers who would disagree with that, though the stand against Sky's allegedly extortionate price hike for its basic channels was in my view justified at the time, the subsequent tit-for-tat playground fighting lost the plot completely.
But from an HD/premium TV service perspective, we're assured that (according to Digital Spy) Virgin will continue to offer premium television services; the shift will be made in terms of marketing rather than product offering. Whilst that may be true, one must have concerns that the money will fund the growth opportunity (broadband provision) rather than improve the less exciting TV service. I don't pretend to understand the funding of VM, but if money is as tight as analysts suggest, the shift of emphasis away from digital TV is not good news for those of us hoping for an evolution of the V+ and HD services rather than stagnation.

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