August 09, 2010

Good Food and Eden HD

UKTV has confirmed plans to launch high definition versions of the Good Food and Eden channels but, despite both channels being co-owned by Virgin Media, they will be exclusively on Sky.
Virgin announced last year that Good Food HD was on its way - why it should now be a Sky exclusive is anyone's guess.
Personally, I think Sky is having to scrape the barrel somewhat to try to meet that 50 HD channels landmark - I'm sure Sky customers would rather having Living HD or Film4 HD than these new channels. Truth is, there's still very limited high def content out there (as anyone who watched 4HD or Five HD will testify) and, aside from More4 and the BBC channels, there aren't many left for Sky to add as "exclusives" that will attract more customers to the platform.

4 comments:

joff81 said...

more to do with this being a reflex announcement to VM stating they want to sell their 50% stake in UKTV 24 hours ago.

its a great way to annoy VM and their customers that their rivals SKY are getting HD channels you are not even though you have a stake in the company that supplies them.

its been done to piss off both VM and their costomers.

LewishamLovely said...

I seriously doubt the above. It's been known for well over a year that VM wanted to sell up.
Why would UKTV be upset at VM selling their stake? And why would they want to piss off VM customers?
UKTV is completely controlled by BBCWW and would probably relish being 100% owned by them as well. Whether VM holds a stake is worth nothing to them as they have no power or control over them - it's all held by BBC WW.
It's weird that VM announced Good Food HD a year ago and now it ends up exclusive to Sky but I suspect, as always with Sky, it's down to them coughing up some cash to facilitate setting up the HD channel and management at UKTV (who are only answerable to BBC WW) decided it was more financially viable to take Sky's offer.
still, a complete own goal by VM. You wonder what's going on there! Also annoying that they didn't include Sky Movies Classics in the recent HD deal with Sky - it was innevitable the channel would launch eventually.

Splatz said...

Anyone noticed the new Sky billboard advertising where Sky are rubbing Virgin's nose in it when it comes to Sky Sports HD?

The billboard shows two pie charts - the Virgin one only has two slices (SS1 HD & SS2HD) while the Sky one has all four SS HD channels.

There is some cheap strap line about how you only get everything on Sky.

It is a bit cheap considering the deal that was struck between the two companies.

claura said...

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