Virgin Media has rearranged its channel line-up following the removal of Sky’s basic channels from the cablenet. Out goes Sky One to be replaced by Virgin Central 2, a reversioning of the on demand TV channel, although the actual video library including episodes of Alias, Nip/Tuck, Little Britain and Spooks, is identical to Virgin Central itself.
BBC News 24 has been moved to the previously vacant channel 601. Channel 602, which was previously occupied by Sky News, is now labelled Sky Snooze. When the channel is selected the channel label changes to ‘Old Sky News’. Viewers also see a caption that begins “Thanks to Sky some of the non premium channels like Sky One, Sky News are no longer available, they’ve picked up the ball and gone home.” The rest of the caption refers to Virgin’s key argument against Sky that it is trying to limit choice.
Virgin Media customers lost access to the Sky basic channels just after midnight when the previous carriage agreement expired. Around 3.3 million viewers are affected by the loss. (JC)