If we (me and other virgin customers) are losing good programming then our bills better drop. I don't think its fair for sky to raise prices as they are scared of a little compitition from virgin media.

The package my housemates and I originally got from NTL was the TV, Phone and Internet bundle, for sake of convenience, as well as getting Sky. The Sky channels are the only ones really worth watching on the bundle we're on, so loosing them will probably mean we'll go elsewhere, as who provides internet and phone doesn't make as much of a difference.

here in MK we don't have a real choice, the terreteral TV reception is almost zero in the city and most houses don't have arials. Everybody has ntl going into there house and it's the only way to get tv and ntl charges everybody £3 basic rate with which you get sky one and some freeview channels and the standard 5.

So the question is, shall I be able to just stop paying ntl becouse I'm no longer getting any pay content off of them?

A year or so ago, this would have bothered me, but there's nothing on Sky One that I watch that I haven't already downloaded from the US

It seems that Sky are acting like the Microsoft of TV broadcasting.

They want more and more control over what you can watch and you have to pay more and more to get what you want, whilst being saddled with a bunch of extra stuff that is of no interest to you.

Why should we need to pay for a whole load of channels which we don't want to watch just to get the ones we do want to see?

Sky are clearly feeling the pinch. The services you mention from BT and Orange, as well as the VoD services provided by Virgin Media are clearly making Sky very nervous.

Just as promised off it went ... now we have Hallmark in its place and scrolling along the bottom of the screen..

'Thanks to Sky, The Sky one channel is no longer available. They've picked up their ball and gone home. Foul play? We think so. To have your say, Visit Virginmedia.com/fairplay.'

and get the key content VODed, I know they have the ability, cos Uma Thurman just told me so.

I'm not a fan of NTL tv, always been quite slow and more limited than sky, BUT where i live is managed by a company called trust and they don't allow sky dishes on the building =/ at least now i have more amnunition to get sky!

I wonder how this will affect the negotiations for the HD channels. I guess we won't see them for a while now.... :(

Thank god. No more rubbish Shy programming. I honestly can't be the only one that has given up on Sky's ever growing pile of drivvel they call 'exclusive'. If they want to change extra for it then fine. Anyone stupid enough to pay so much more, for such appaling TV, well, quite frankly, deserves to be ripped off. The few 'good' programs that Sky have can all be bought on DVD or *cough* downloaded *cough* anyway. Virgin/NTL are far cheaper, and lets face it, when you only watch the TV for a few hours a day (unless you really are that sad) who cares!

Sky should be broken into two separate companies one to create content and one to distribute it.

The content provider should have to sell its channels transparently to any platform (cable/satellite/freeview/mobile) that wishes to take it.

Sky is abusing its power here and should be stopped by ofcom or the monopolies commission.

After the first moment of "oh-my-god-sky-is-going" we realised that we watch Sky One for exactly two hours of tv every week - Lost and Battlestar Gallactica. I like the Simpsons, but since Sky plays at least three hours of them every flippin' day I think I've really seen enough. Ditto Malcolm In The Middle. Ditto "Worlds Funniest Operating Room Mistakes" or whatever else they're showing that evening.

It's a pain to lose the stuff we actually watch, but I've spent most of my life waiting for US shows to appear on terrestial and somehow I think I'll survive. I agree that Virgin's price should drop - the package I have was specifically to get Sky, so I'm off to have a look at dropping down. But I won't be leaving.

Good to see that Virgin have been mature about the whole thing. I noticed this morning that "Sky News" has become "Sky Snooze try BBC News".

Here's an idea - Virgin Media/Branson should buy the next series of Lost, 24 and Battlestar Galactica and show them on a Virgin Media only channel.

I'm sure Branson can afford it!

I have Sky unfortunately because there's no freeview or cable alternative and I like my news channels and BBC4.

Oddly though, not a single Sky offering is on my favourites filter because it's just brain rotting twaddle.

Good on Virgin taking on these tossers. I also find it galling that I have to pay Sky a small fortune to get Freesat just so I can get free to air channels but the b*stards still withhold More 4.

To add insult to injury, when Sky get their paws on all these so called hit TV series', the 20 minutes of ad padding makes them unbearable to watch (can't say E4 are much better). No wonder folk hit the torrents.

Sky have become an unhealthy monopoly and it's time this is scrutinised a bit more by Ofcom and the government. In fact the so called 'choice' that is we're supposed to have frankly doesn't exist if you live in areas without Freeview or cable, or if cable is available then often the choice to have a dish isn't there because of planning restrictions. Isn't it about time that satellite broadcast access is brought into line with that of telephony and the other utilities where we can actually choose who we want to buy channels from over a third party managed access media.

As a customer who is already paying way more than my workmates for the same package from Virgin (I have been a customer for 2 years) I think this is outrageous. Virgin are not offering me a discount for this drop in service, and indeed in the weeks since they took over the service from Telewest the service levels have dropped considerably, with speech and picture out of sync on the TV, channels disappearing, and the Internet connection dropping out at random intervals. Virgin need to get their finger out and sort these issues or they will lose my custom to someone else.

Just get a subscription to an anoymising Usenet provider (say, ooh, astraweb), pay a newsgroup aggregator 25p a week to provide you with NZB files, and download lost and battlestar galactica at your connection's best speed. You can even get Stargate Atlantis before it airs in the US, since Canadian TV were kind enough to air it ealier, and various unknown heroes in Canadaland were kind enough to go to the effort of making it available. Then maybe both VM and Sky will start to realise that they're arguing over a business model that is already obsolete. That is, unless you WANT to pay premium prices for 'exclusive' US content that is already 8 months out of date when you get to see it (it's even worse in Australialand I understand, but it's it's bad enough here in Englandland).