22 July 2018 Around four million households are no longer able to watch 10 of the countrys best-known TV channels after Virgin Media stopped offering the UKTV portfolio at midnight on Saturday.
The move means that Virgin Media customers miss out on channels including Dave, Alibi, Drama and Gold, as well as favourite shows such as Taskmaster, Judge Romesh, Harrow and Red Dwarf. In addition to the live channels, Virgin Media will no longer provide access to thousands of hours of programmes from UKTV to watch on demand.
The two companies were unable to reach an agreement on a new distribution deal after Virgin Media demanded a huge cut in the fees paid to UKTV. Since the news broke last week hundreds of Virgin Media customers, who faced an increase of up to £48.00 in their annual subscription last November, have taken to social media to express their unhappiness about losing their favourite channels.
Virgin Media have now confirmed that they have replaced UKTVs channels slots with alternative channels, many of which sit lower on the EPG.
Prior to the switch-off, UKTVs channels were some of the most popular on the Virgin Media platform. Alibi and Gold were two of Virgins top three pay entertainment channels, while Good Food was the top pay lifestyle channel. Overall, UKTV accounts for more than a quarter of all viewing to pay entertainment channels in Virgins basic pay TV package and its on demand views grew by more than a third in the last year.
Contrary to some reports, UKTV supplied thousands of hours of on demand programming to the platform, including its biggest shows such as Taskmaster and Most Haunted. UKTV also offered to significantly increase the volume; offering thousands of extra catch up hours and hundreds of boxset hours to Virgin Media.
Darren Childs, Chief Executive of UKTV, said,
Were hugely disappointed for the many customers who are losing out because our channels are no longer available through Virgin Media. We completely understand their frustration and would love to continue to bring them the shows and channels that theyre so passionate about, but we need a fair price to support our growing investment in programmes. The reality is that we just cant accept the drastic price cut that Virgin wants.
We remain completely committed to our viewers and appreciate the thousands of messages of support that we have received. We will continue to serve our viewers through our many platform partners.
The ten UKTV channels previously on the Virgin Media platform are Alibi, Gold, W, Eden, Good Food, Dave, Yesterday, Drama, Really and Home. If Virgin Media customers want to continue to watch these channels, they are available on other TV platforms including Sky, BT, Talk Talk, as well as Freeview and Freesat. Viewers can also catch up on their favourite shows online at UKTV Play.
ENDS
Why dont you give Virgin your channels for free?
It is unreasonable to ask UKTV to pay to be part of a product that Virgin Media sells to customers.
Virgin Media dont offer a TV package to customers without some kind of subscription fee. In effect, they want UKTV to subsidise their business by paying to be part of a product that they sell for a minimum of £29 a month.
Virgin customers can continue to watch our free channels without subscription on Freeview and Freesat.
Background information 1. UKTV is investing more than ever to create high-quality programmes and build strong channel brands
- Record content investment of more than £150 million in the last year
- Premiering exclusive new series in 2018 including Taskmaster, Judge Romesh, Women on the Verge and Emma Willis: Delivering Babies
- Audiences are voting with their remotes: UKTVs share of pay viewing on Virgin Media is up by 8% in last five years
- Growing recognition from industry and commentators for our original series including BAFTA and Emmy nominations and awards
2. Our channels are highly valued by Virgin Media customers
- UKTV accounts for more than 25% of viewing to pay entertainment channels in Virgins basic pay pack
- Alibi and Gold are two of Virgins top three pay entertainment channels
- Good Food is the top pay lifestyle channel on the VM platform
- On Demand views to UKTV channels on Virgin Media are up by more than a third in the last year; now offering access to 1000s of hours of content
3. We want a fair price for the value our channels bring to the VM platform
- Virgins attempt to impose a drastic reduction in fees is not reasonable
- Weve offered to work with Virgin to bring more value to their customers: increased box sets, additional rights and addition of Gold HD
- Disappointed that VM is attempting to force down the value of content
- We cant continue with a partner who wont invest with us to bring their customers high-quality programmes. VM cant expect preferential treatment over other partners who do choose invest with us
- UKTV channels and shows continue to be available on Sky, BT, Talk Talk, as well as Freeview and Freesat and online at UKTV Play for our free channels.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
22 July 2018 Around four million households are no longer able to watch 10 of the countrys best-known TV channels after Virgin Media stopped offering the UKTV portfolio at midnight on Saturday. 
