Virgin Media customers will once again have access to Sky channels such as Sky1, Sky News and Sky Sports News after the company signed a new channel carriage deal with BSkyB.

Virgin Media subscribers lost access to the channels at the end of February 2007 after a disagreement between the two companies that escalated over the amount that Sky wanted to charge Virgin Media to have access to the channels. 

 Sky and Virgin have since resolved the issue after Virgin agreed to pay Sky £30m per year plus yearly incentives. As such Virgin subscribers can expect to see Sky channels back on their TV’s by the 15^th of November 2008. The channels include Sky1, Sky2, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2.At the same time, Sky subscribers will continue to have access to Virgin Media TV’s basic channels, including Living, Bravo, Virgin 1 and Trouble.

Charlie Ponsonby, CEO of Simplifydigital, said: “This is a welcome end to the stand-off between Virgin Media and Sky with the customer the real winner”

Written by chris