More from Berkett on additonal HD channels

The guys over at Trusted Reviews have two pieces of interest today you may want to have a look at. The first is their report on the arrival of 50mb Virgin Media broadband, the second is some more words from Virgin CEO Neil Berkett on additional HD channels coming to Virgin Media next year.

Berkett confirms: four HD channels on their way. Sky Sports and Movies "available"

At last, something to get excited about on the HD front, albeit still lacking dates 'n' details. According to this post over on BroadbandTVnews.com, Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett said at the UBS 36th Annual Global Media and Communications conference this week:

“To date our HD content is limited, we only have a couple of HD channels today and we will be launching four channels over the next three months. For us the key to HD is sports and movies and to invest unduly until we get access to that is not the right thing to do.” Berkett said Virgin could catch-up quickly should the market change and would be able to gear up within three to six months. The switch-off of Virgin’s remaining analogue homes would enable delivery of between 30-40 HD channels should the cablenet choose to offer them.

Hang on..."we only have a couple of HD channels today"???? Is he talking prematurely about an imminent arrival or does he never watch the service himself? And what are the four definitely on their way?? I'd say C4 HD and ITV HD, plus maybe FX and Sky1 (as suggested over on cableforum.co.uk).

UPDATE: Over on cableforum.co.uk the ever-reliable Horizon has posted the following information from Berkett at the conference:

Berkett confirmed he has now had access to Sky's HD channels for a few months, where as previously they were "locked up" by Sky. But not a price he considers reasonable, hence the ongoing review by Ofcom which he believes will find in VM's favour.

Petition letter - comments please!

I've drafted the following to accompany the petition when I send it to Virgin Media MD Neil Berkett next week. Any comments welcome.

Dear Mr Berkett
I am writing to you to make you aware of the strength of feeling in Virgin Media’s customer base regarding the lack of high definition services on your cable TV platform.
For the last eight months I have produced a website promoting Virgin’s high definition services. During this time the site (www.vmhd.blogspot.com) has had almost 50,000 visitors. To me, that’s a good indication that there’s a lot of interest in the availability of HD programming on cable TV in the UK.
Unfortunately, Virgin Media’s HD services do not satisfy that enthusiasm or level of interest from your customers. One part-time channel and a diminishing selection of On Demand programming (that appears in a chaotic, incomplete fashion) is extremely poor value for your premium customers. Filmflex HD movies come at a considerable additional cost.
To capture the opinions of this frustrated community I set up an online petition (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/VirginTVHD) calling for signatories to support a demand of Virgin Media that you increase and improve your high definition TV services. Even I did not expect such a sizable, rapid and vocal response. Please find attached the signatories collected in a single week of the petition – 615 in total.
I appreciate that Virgin Media believes that its broadband and On Demand services are its USP. I understand that infrastructure and technologies are undergoing significant upgrades at considerable cost. But surely you cannot ignore your highest paying TV customers who at the very least should have high definition services on a par with those already promised by Freesat and Freeview.
Like so many others, I have selected Virgin Media over Sky and BT for my TV, broadband and telephony services. Like other VIP customers I’m paying over £1,000 a year for services – that’s a premium rate for what should be a premium service. The current TV provision is very clearly not seen by your customers as of a premium standard, particularly with regards to the availability of high definition programmes which are so clearly the future of quality TV services. Unless something is done soon by the Virgin management I fear that there will be a migration to Sky by your highest paying customers that will dwarf the impact of the loss of the Sky basics in 2007.
I await with interest your response to the signatories on this petition.
Kind regards, etc etc

Berkett in Madrid

According to the Broadband TV website Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett has said at the Cable Congress 2008 show in Madrid this week:

“We’re significantly improving our proposition in terms of HD and expanding our library, but we still have a long way to go before we hit the consumer mainstream that we aspire to. We need to educate consumers and drive experimentation.”

Berkett returned to familiar ground during his Wednesday evening keynote, putting his case for “economic access” to [Sky’s] pay-TV content and setting out the advantages of cable broadband over DSL to a willing audience.

What does this mean? Hopefully there will be more HD on demand available when the new iPlayer and 4OD services are introduced in May, and maybe a return of the Sky basics is pending, and possibly a Virgin IPTV offering is in the pipeline. Interesting.

"Virgin only needs one HD channel"!!!

Big story over at Digital Spy that interprets comments made by Virgin Media management as saying "they only need one HD channel". VM don't actually say "one's enough" (bit of tabloid journalism on DS's part there). Here are the salient points without the DS spin:

"Chief executive Neil Berkett and chief technology officer Howard Watson both addressed the issue of advanced TV services at the Cable Congress in Madrid this week.

"Watson said the popularity of HD in the US - where significantly more content and channels are generally available - was driven by the country's NTSC analogue television system. It is generally accepted that it gives a worse picture than PAL, the alternative employed in the UK.

"We don’t have the ‘Never The Same Colour’ challenge that has driven HD offering in the US," said Watson, according to Broadband TV News. "We have 7m HD ready sets in the UK and I still think HD works really well for certain bits of content but is disappointing for others.

"I don’t think we’re losing customers because we don’t have the HD lineup that Sky has. It’s not causing us a churn problem - all of our HD customers [have] PVRs - so it's difficult to separate them, but a part of that is HD."
...
"Neil Berkett used his comments at the Madrid event to talk up its commitment to offering VoD. ... Berkett said the strategy was going well - subscribers now spend more hours watching VoD than linear channel Five - but admitted the "need to educate consumers and drive experimentation" in order to push the service."

Still disheartening mind - has Berkett seen the paucity of VOD HD content of late? It's thrown up in such a slapdash manner it beggars belief - last night two episodes of Band of Brothers were added to the first five: episode 7, and a second listing for episode 5! How inept is that??

I maintain this blog because there seems to be a genuine passion for more HD services on Virgin Media - it gets around 6,000 visits a month and the folk who comment on it are all singing the same tune - we genuinely need more HD on the Virgin Media. If Freesat launches with a handful of HD channels and better bit rates for the Freeview line up, I reckon a lot of folk will move both from Sky and Virgin. I don't disagree with VM that Video On Demand is fantastic and very important, but they've got to promote it better than the nonsensical Samuel L Jackson ads that look great but hardly educate.

Postscript: on another Digital Spy thread, Virgin are saying this in an email to customers

"We still agree with you that adding both the main HD channels (eg BBC HD) and an increasing vod HD selection is the way to go. But it's early days as you know. Ch4 HD has lots of SD still in it, and neither ITV nor Ch5 have launched HD" properly yet. Meanwhile, we will continue to add more specific HD content to the vod platform.