Selling to the Enemy

The other day virgin announced it had finally sold its main channel portfolio to Sky, this included Virgin 1, Challenge, all Living and Bravo channels. Now considering the public spats between Sky and Virgin you'd think that this is rare indeed. Truth is Virgin has been trying to sell it's channel portfolio since it became Virgin Media. Sky was always in the frame, there were others but sky was always the only candidate to buy these channels.

Now the problem has always been the value of these channels, Sky didn't see much value to them and Virgin did. Hence the period when Sky pulled all its channels from Virgin over the price to show channels on respective platforms. This forced Virgin to regain its channels values. Living was already good but Virgin pushed its value that little bit more. They dropped teen channel Trouble, this in respect was the cheapest move but I'm a firm believer that the audience was there but the channel was stuck in the nineties.  Virgin then built the Virgin 1 brand which in a stroke of genius did 'Living on Virgin 1' this showcased the best of the Living format on a free platform. On top they made some smart purchases for the channel and created a good channel. They then began to turn their attention to Bravo and have pushed that to a new level. This was all backed up by the extra income from the challenge channels.

Now I'm a person who feels sad these channels are leaving Virgin and going to Sky as, Virgin were providing fresh programming. I wanted to see what they would do next, would they look at the Bravo 2 channel, would Trouble make a return, maybe Virgin 1 would have 'Bravo on Virgin 1'.

What next, well Sky have some decisions to make on the way the channels would run in their business. I have a few suggestions.

• Re-jig all Sky's programming across the new channels, Supernatural and 24 would fit perfect on Bravo.
• Living could benefit from Sky's funding to bring more glamor, not that it needs it.
• Bravo 2 could be made more female orientated, with shows like House and Supernatural. 
• Make Living 2 more male orientated with glamor and fashion shows aimed at men.
• Challenge is another income for Sky and Sky will make it more interactive, integrating it with Sky player.
• Virgin 1, will be re-named and should become a showcase channel. I suggest Sky Showcase so it can run 'Living on Sky Showcase' bringing more people to the sky pay channels via the Freeview platform.

So where does this sale leave virgin. Answer is in good place to build itself as a provider but also at risk if ever Sky pulls channels from the platform again.  Virgin still own half of UKTV, though this is being lined up to sell to Channel 4, they also own Film-flex their film on demand system.

Virgin though have to step up their game to be a provider against Sky and the growing IPTV market.

• They need to offer more HD content and a lot of it in their basic package.
• Video on demand needs improving and taking to the next level, a system they launched so well is now dying from lack of upgrades.
• Multi-room and a online offering needed. People have more than one TV and the business should reflect this.
• The program guide needs updating, their system is old clunky, unreliable and has many services that are so stuck in the nineties I'm surprised if anyone still uses them. They need a major and regular overhaul of how their system works. 
• Competitive on demand pricing. People won't hire a film for £4 is you can buy it for £3 or subscribe to several for £7 a month. They won't hire a TV series for more than it costs to buy.

I wish both companies luck but do point out that more channels are only as good as their new content. In today's market, consumers want new formats as quick as they are released globally and they one older content available on demand.

Rotting Apples - an the multimedia hardware giant turn around it's rotting apples?

Apple - computer genius, music maestro, communication artist and now publication facilitator. Apple is all these things, and more. The once struggling company has taken its time and effort to build not only a successful brand but also a variety of products made for the IT generation.

What makes apple so popular is its ability to innovate but still have a reliability and stability to it's products. That's not all, they create a buzz around their products and an education on how to use them, as they innovate the basic functions that were outrageous to begin with become normal.

With the launch of the iPad and the fact it's sold two million of them, I turned myself to the less innovative products. The ones that have been starting to rot with time.

The World Wide Developers conference may be the place for these rotting apples to get a new lease of life. Apple's chance to update the lines and innovate products to mass appeal or to let them rot away.

So what are these products and what are my predictions:


iPhone - It's a year since the iPhone had any hardware upgrade and recent leaks show that an all new 4th generation iPhone should be on it's way. There may be a few surprises but my betting is we wont see 4G technology or secure meemory card technology to enable apps to take advantage of existing products such as Visa's Pay Wave or London tube's Oyster card for at least another year.


iTunes - With the recent release of iBooks on the iPad and promises it will join the iPhone in the summer, that can only means iTunes will get access to this little bookstore and the ability to read books on your computer. Also there are talks of iTunes getting streaming capability, but this is apple they will have some other surprises and upgrades, my money is on Genius and Home Sharing.


Apple TV- Known as Apple's hobby this year is the make or break for the device that could be so much but delivers so little. So betting is Apple will be showcasing some updated hardware and hopefully a fully fledged software upgrade that takes the things they do so well in their other products. So I expect to see video streaming, video/audio app integration and a new improved Home Sharing.


iLife - The media application suite that ships with Mac's hasn't been updated since iLife'09 so maybe there will be an announcement of a 2011 version with some new feature. Faces and Places improvements no doubt top of the list but maybe some app versions for the iPad and iPhone. I would love to see garage bands Artists lessons as an app or an ability to edit podcasts on the move.


iWorks - Again not updated since the iWork'09 but since then iWorks.com has been updating slowly, the iPad version has been released. So surely the Mac version will get some updates to improve stability between these and some new features itself. I think iWorks.com may come out of beta or some major changes will appear.

Mobile me - This hasn't had a major upgrade since it's launch but it has had a number of major tweaks and recently a new version of mail in Beta. My bet is a few more announcements on mobile me, especially if there is a new iPhone and iTunes finally brings its streaming capabilities. Maybe we shall see more integration of iTunes and iWorks.com.


ARD 4 - Apple Remote Desktop hasn't had a good update in years, some may ask what the big deal. Well the answer is simple, Business. Business needs to keep updating their computers and help IT control from a distance, ARD allows this to happen and more on Apple computers. What I'm predicting are some major changes and some surprising ones. First up is Boot Camp support, apple have no control over rebooting a boot camped machine or even installing Boot Camped images over a network and with more and more companies going for this set up, there is a cry for this control. iPhone & iPad support, with the OS4 bringing a raft of business enterprise features, why cant we see these being distributed and controlled from ARD. I myself would like to see the Find my iPhone feature from Mobile Me brought to ARD.


Publication software - This is more a prediction than any hard evidence but all the same there is a gap in the market and Apple could fill it.  When the iPad launched the publishing world, particularly print said it could save its industry. Now it's still early day but it does have that potential and you can see those trying to make it work, but that's where it stops. Apple needs to bring a Pro App software for print publications. I think apple will be looking at something revolutionary that will receive news stories or assignments, integrate with Final Cut Serve to bring video, audio and pictures to attach to stories. Give them the ability to write stories and create ePub magazines/papers and publish to the web with just a few clicks. It wouldn't surprise me if we saw iAd integration in the output and that there was an iPad app for the journalists to send stories in. I also think Apple would create this so that lots of social media could be taken advantage of and that news hubs could be created so local newspapers could supply national newspapers or UK and US editions of magazines could share stories and articles.

I think I'll wait and see what Steve Jobs says in his speech at the World Wide Developers Conference on June 9th.