BSkyB and Virgin Media have declared an end to their 20-month long public row with an agreement for Sky channels to return to cable television.The satellite broadcaster, which shows hit programmes such as Lost and 24 on Sky One, went off air on Virgin Media in February 2007 following a long and costly dispute over how much BSkyB intended to charge Virgin Media to renew its distribution contract for the basic package.
The row had been widely seen as a burden on both companies, and Nasdaq-listed Virgin Media rose 13pc in early trading to $7.52 while BSkyB was 9pc higher at 425.75p.
The dispute between the rivals began as relations between the pair hit an all-time low following BSkyB's acquisition of a 17.9pc stake in ITV. It was claimed that BSkyB's intentions for acquiring the stake were purely to prevent NTL, now part of Virgin Media, from taking over ITV.
The new agreement, scheduled to begin on November 13, will see Sky's basic channels, such as Sky One, Sky Two and Sky Sports News, return to cable. A second agreement provides for the continued carriage of Virgin Media TV's basic channels - Living, Living Two, Bravo, Bravo Two, Trouble, Challenge and Virgin One - on Sky. Both deals will run concurrently until 12 June 2011.
As part of the agreements, both Sky and Virgin Media have agreed to terminate all High Court proceedings against each other relating to the channel carriage dispute. The agreement includes fixed annual carriage fees for the channels with both groups able to secure additional capped payments if their channels meet certain performance-related targets. The groups would not reveal the financial terms of the new contract.
Bob de Bilde's Comment:
I am glad this has been sorted, now, but I am still seething at Branson's arrogance last March. The only good thing to come out of all this is the speedy (if not hasty) introduction of Virgin's replayer and catch up service and the Virgin 1 channel.
