Virgin XL customers to get ESPN free (and HD)

macca672

macca672

macca672

Soldato
Joined
20 Mar 2005
Posts
3,110
Location
Leicester
Taken from another forum I frequent and posted by a VM employee who recieved the news through the vm intranet

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Having it extra large with ESPN and ESPN HD

Today we're turning up the volume on our TV service by announcing an amazing deal with ESPN to carry all of their sports channels - including ESPN HD!

Once again the deal is something for us to shout about from the terraces, as TV Size: XL customers will get all of the ESPN channels at no extra cost - including ESPN HD.

The deal means that all 3.5 million of our digital TV customers will be able to experience every kick of every ball with access to all of the televised English and Scottish Premier League football matches - an armchair supporters dream...

The channels...
Our deal means that we'll be carrying all of the ESPN channels available:

ESPN - So far ESPN has announced a line up that includes the 46 Barclays Premier League matches and 23 Clydesdale Bank Premier League matches, with more great sports content to come.

ESPN HD- Just the same great line up as ESPN - but in glorious High Definition!

ESPN Classic - is the unique 24/7 sports channel featuring the greatest games, stories, heroes and memories in the history of sport, with a mix of all-time classic highlights, matches, interviews, profiles and documentaries.

ESPN America* - features the best sporting action from North America, including the NHL, MLB, NFL and NCAA College Sports.

Our customers are on the winning team - saving up to £144 a year!
As the ESPN channels are free to our XL TV customers, they can save up to an amazing £144 a year with us (Sky customers have to pay £12 a month for ESPN if they don't have Sky Sports or £9 if they do)!

In fact our innovative deal means that our customers can pair ESPN with Sky Sports and watch all the live English Barclays Premier League and Scottish Clydesdale Premier League matches cheaper than anyone else in the UK.

The deals...
Virgin Media TV customers have two options to get the ESPN channels:

Option 1)Subscribe to our TV Size: XL package and get all three ESPN channels at no extra cost - and this is on top of all the other benefits our top TV package brings!

Option 2) Customers who don't have TV Size: XL can subscribe to the ESPN channels, however they won't receive ESPN Classic. The premium subscription costs £8 per month if a customer takes any Sky Sports channel or £10 per month if they don't - both options are cheaper than Sky's offer!

Time to celebrate!
As a celebration of our deal with ESPN, we'll be making ESPN, ESPN HD and ESPN America* available as a free view to all Virgin Media TV customers throughout the whole of August!

Customers won't even need to lift a finger to get the channels - we'll just add them for them!

Kick off...
The channels will launch on 3 August with the first live Premier League football match being Everton vs. Arsenal on 15 August at 5.30pm.

A word from Mark Schweitzer
We asked Mark Schweitzer, our Chief Commercial officer what he thought of the news. Here's what he said:

"This agreement solidifies our place as the home of TV entertainment and is unquestionably the best value TV deal for sports fanatics. We've got all the sports content you'd expect and adding the new ESPN channel to our line-up will mean our customers can watch all the football action they want.

We're always looking for ways to go the extra mile for our customers and we think this market beating offer does this in spades, as well as providing a sweetener for the start of the football season. We're extremely proud to have partnered with ESPN, which is the world's leading multimedia sports entertainment company."

Stay tuned...
We're going to be back in touch later in the week with all of the information you need to get selling - including selling tips for TV Size: XL and how we're going to be letting customers know about the deal! We'll also ensure we update you on what's happening with the remaining channels left from the old Setanta offer - like Racing UK and Arsenal TV.

And, look out later in the week for more news on TV - including how Sky is changing their premium channel prices and how it will affect us.

*It's possible that ESPN America will cease broadcasting on any UK platform from 3 August for a short period of up to a few months to enable ESPN to launch their new channels. We'll let you know as soon as we get any updates on this.
 
Last edited:
and virgin have now added the press release to their website


http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=205406&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1313434&highlight=
29/07/09
Virgin Media and ESPN announce channel deal ahead of Premier League football season
Sports fans can now get ESPN channels as part of Virgin Media’s XL pack for no extra cost

Virgin Media (NASDAQ: VMED) and ESPN today announced that the new ESPN channel will be available in both standard and High Definition (HD) to Virgin Media’s 3.5 million digital TV customers from 3rd August. The ESPN channel will offer live Barclays Premier League and Clydesdale Bank Premier League football as well a wide range of international football and top quality sports.

Customers who subscribe to Virgin Media’s XL TV pack will be able to watch ESPN and ESPN HD at no additional cost. As part of the deal, these subscribers will also receive ESPN Classic, featuring the greatest moments of UK and European sport.

Dedicated sports fans who are on Virgin Media’s M or L pack will be able to subscribe to ESPN and ESPN HD for a great value price of £8 a month if they already subscribe to any combination of the Sky Sports channels, or £10 a month if not.

As a special introduction to the new ESPN and ESPN HD channels, Virgin Media will make these ESPN channels available to all of its digital TV customers, for no additional cost, during August.

Mark Schweitzer, chief commercial officer of Virgin Media, said: “This agreement solidifies Virgin Media’s place as the home of TV entertainment and is unquestionably the best value TV deal for sports fanatics. We’ve got all the sports content you’d expect and adding the new ESPN channels to our line-up will mean our customers can watch all the football action they want.”

Mr Schweitzer added: “We’re always looking for ways to go the extra mile for our customers and we think this market beating offer does this in spades as well as providing a sweetener for the start of the football season. We are extremely proud to have partnered with ESPN, which is the world’s leading multimedia sports entertainment company.”

Lynne Frank, managing director for ESPN in Europe, Middle East and Africa said: “We are delighted to add Virgin Media as a new distribution partner and to offer millions more sports fans ESPN’s compelling mix of Barclays Premier League and Clydesdale Bank Premier League football, as well as the best of international football and top quality sports. The plan to make the channels available to Virgin Media’s XL customers will help ESPN better serve sports fans in the UK. It’s an exciting season ahead and we look forward to bringing our new channels, ESPN and ESPN HD as well as ESPN Classic, to as many sports fans as possible.”

ESPN’s new channel ‘ESPN’ will launch on 3rd August in both standard definition and HD. It will showcase 46 live Premier League football games during the 2009/10 season and 23 matches for each of the following three seasons. ESPN will also show 30 live and exclusive Clydesdale Bank Premier League games each season across the UK and Ireland, starting with the 2009/10 campaign this August. The channel will also broadcast other top international sporting events, which will be announced shortly.

The first live Barclays Premier League game on ESPN will be Everton versus Arsenal with a 5:30pm kick off on Saturday 15th August.
Click to expand...
 
Sky are gonna have to respond to this in some way. Full Sky TV customers should get it for free if anything.
 
nope not yet...:rolleyes:

I asked when I signed up in Jan, bloke said they be on the list soon, within a couple of months. Fine I thought at the time...wish I went the Sky or Feesat route now. :lol:

There are a few HD programmes/series on TV choice and you do get the HD films from the movies on demand. The picture is great, thats if there is something HD that I'd want to watch.

Then setanta went...great no sport and I aint forking out the extra for the sky channels.
 
The same situation as Setanta which caused a fair bit of resentment from Sky customers and harmed subscriptions on that platform.
 
HD is a joke in this country. I know very little about the technicalities of broadcasting non-premium channels such as ITVHD & C4HD, but I suppose part of the problem is that broadcasters have little incentive to push HD channels hard due to the high sunk costs in transmitting HD but lack of resultant marginal revenue.
 
Robbie G said:
HD is a joke in this country. I know very little about the technicalities of broadcasting non-premium channels such as ITVHD & C4HD, but I suppose part of the problem is that broadcasters have little incentive to push HD channels hard due to the high sunk costs in transmitting HD but lack of resultant marginal revenue.
Click to expand...

Personally i think its because most people simply dont care, even on my 1080p 120" display i dont mind whether a channel is HD or SD really. Yes HD looks better, and yes i only get movies in HD, but general TV? Nice if its HD but i dont care either way, the SD channels look fine to my eyes scaled up. My other half can barely tell the difference between BBC HD and a decent quality channel such as BBC1 scaled to 1080 and certainly doesnt understand why i went to all the bother of upgrading my house with an HDMI matrix to feed BD/HTPC/SkyHD all over the house when my SD setup was barely any worse really.
 
Last edited:
That's more bit rate than HD though. I also don't care about HDTV atm. Because I struggle to tell the difference. However blu-ray on the other hand is day and night.
If HDTV was blu-ray quality I would be watching the HD channels. But even though I have the HD channels I rarely watch them as There is so little difference.
 
Acidhell, i would say that something like BBC HD is very much blu-ray quality, it looks absolutely fantastic.

BUT, for tv, i still dont care that much. Its the low bitrate rather than the resolution which makes most of the SD channels look crap.
 
Metalface Mark said:
Sky dont and wont have to respond in any way.
Click to expand...

I probably should have said "should" rather than "gonna".

A lot of Sky customers are very angry on AVForums and on DigitalSpy with this move by Virgin. And what with Sky increasing their prices in September, they really should do something to counteract this.
 
There is a huge difference between TV HD and normal TV being broadcast by sky, especially if you opt for a bigger tv.
Hopefully more and more HD channels get added to both sky and virgin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom