Virgin Media

[sir.prize]

is sold to the Americans. Can we look forward to price increases? Yep Buddy!

[albaqwerty]

There would be price increases no matter who owns what. Free market/competitive market and so on but they won't price themselves out of it though.

The name of the guy who bought it has gone over my head, the 'media' are calling him some sort of alligator.

[Old_Geezer]

I thought they marketed themselves on price (and coolness) to the younger generation. I'm unsure they can afford to hike the service price much.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21347814

/// Virgin Media reported a 30% rise in operating profit to £699.1m last year. ///

In spite of this my Broadband/Telephone package was increased by £2.24 this month.

[barney15c]

I note the company (Libery Global) has debt running into $30bn yet paid $23bn for Virgin in Cash and Stock..one wonders if they can sustain more debt with the recession as it is.
Do you think the new owners will invest in extending the network as i believe it has somewhat stalled since the financial crisis. Also will they market themselves more aggresively to be much stiffer competition to $ky?

[friedgreentomato]

I don't know why my answer was removed!!

But i was stating a valid fact Virgin is a business it is there to make a profit hence it will put up its prices!

[bazwillrun]

"Do you think the new owners will invest in extending the network"

Minimally, the time is rapidly approaching when the way we recieve data will no longer need cables copper or other wise.
4g is here, 5g is already in the pipline, so it wont be long before all data can be streamed and recieved at acceptable speeds via mobile connections and that includes TV.

so unless they come up with some new reasons for people to keep paying around £13 and steadily rising per month for a phone line and then whatever else on top for B/Band etc they wont want to be spending money on a diminishing useage system.

For most people the B/band itself is pretty damn cheap its the cost of the needed phone line that bumps it up, so the sooner that these are removed from the equation the better.

for a lot of people the line rental is far more than their Broadband ! you can thank BT for that and their protected monopoly infrastructure paid for by taxpayers many years ago.

most of us would have had far superior Broadband years ago if it wasnt for BT.

[youngmafbog]

Smacks of asset stripping.

The price probably wont rise dramatically but I bet the service takes a nose dive.

I have the full package, including the phones on which I get a fair discount. Not expecting that to continue !

[Bazile]

What's Richard Branson going to sell off next - the airline business ?

[sir.prize]

Bazile - I don't think the sale was Branson's idea - he has only a 3% stake in Virgin Media.

[barney15c]

He's made £200m from the sale and still retains 3% of the business. Virgin keeps naming rights for 30 years , so no name change soon.