Virgin Media and eir Sport join forces to combine sports offering for Irish viewers

Former Former

mfceiling wrote: »

So basically the viewing figures this year are not going to be great. Who other than the real hard core fans will sign up for a heap of different channels just to watch some league matches on a Friday night.
I'd hate for someone to install of those dodgy boxes in my living room to avoid this scenario.

Why would the figures be any worse than last year? If anything, they should be increased if 300,000 more houses can now get Eir Sport

Zzippy

FFS. Can't get Virgin. Can't get Eir bb, too far from the exchange. Dropping eir sport pack the day the RWC pool stages are over. The knockout stages are all on FTA, right?

The Lost Sheep

Zzippy wrote: »

FFS. Can't get Virgin. Can't get Eir bb, too far from the exchange. Dropping eir sport pack the day the RWC pool stages are over. The knockout stages are all on FTA, right?

all knockout on rte

Cookiemunster

Zzippy wrote: »

FFS. Can't get Virgin. Can't get Eir bb, too far from the exchange. Dropping eir sport pack the day the RWC pool stages are over. The knockout stages are all on FTA, right?

You need to give a months notice, so if you ring them the day of the last group game you'll have it for another month after that.

Quin_Dub

Zzippy wrote: »

FFS. Can't get Virgin. Can't get Eir bb, too far from the exchange. Dropping eir sport pack the day the RWC pool stages are over. The knockout stages are all on FTA, right?

Cookiemunster wrote: »

You need to give a months notice, so if you ring them the day of the last group game you'll have it for another month after that.

Yup..

Count back the days and call them 31 days before the final group stage game.

An Tarbh

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

I was just replying on another thread there. I wonder is it possible that the games that were on eir sport 2 will now be on virgin media sport on satellite.

Why would you launch a channel with carriage fees to only show Champions League/Europa Cup games. Would it not make sense to put the extra pro14 game on the channel as well.

Perhaps there would be issues with the DOG (e.g. eir sport in the top right corner of the screen on a Virgin Sport labelled channel).
I wonder who is paying for the carriage charges on satellite? It would be surprising if Virgin were as they are a cable company. Could eir sport be covering the carriage charge?

No they won't, Virgin don't have the rights to those games so they won't be on the Virgin channels, this deal is only about making the channels available on each others platforms, there's no change in where the content will be broadcast

conf101

As a Virgin TV customer, I'm pretty happy with this. It makes their terrible tv offering a bit more palatable.

But in general, this constant channel chopping and changing is so annoying for rugby followers and does nothing for helping attract new fans.

kub

Ok, I am confused by all this channel business.

Can someone please help me.

I have Sky with the sports package and Eir sports as well, I was able to view all Champions Cup and Pro 14 games last season.

What do I have to do now in order to see them all this next season and also the World Cup ?

Thank you all.

Cookiemunster

kub wrote: »

Ok, I am confused by all this channel business.

Can someone please help me.

I have Sky with the sports package and Eir sports as well, I was able to view all Champions Cup and Pro 14 games last season.

What do I have to do now in order to see them all this next season and also the World Cup ?

Thank you all.

To see the Champions Cup you will need to add 'Sky Sports Extra' to your Sky package to access BT. You already have the Pro14 and world cup through your Eir Sports subscription.

How about as a Virgin customer, do I just get Eir sport now or do I need to subscribe to something?

icdg

Spencer Colossal Thud wrote: »

How about as a Virgin customer, do I just get Eir sport now or do I need to subscribe to something?

Yes, it’ll be added to the basic package and you won’t need to do anything.

(No Heineken Cup for you though, except the one game each week on Virgin Media One/Channel 4).

Also a big discrepancy between the two sides which is very worth pointing out. Both Eir Broadband only customers and TV customers will benefit from this deal. But on the Virgin side, you must take TV to benefit from this deal.

molloyjh

It looks like Irish rugby fans will only get to see the provincial games live. Seems Eir Sport 1 and TG4 are covering all of them. But if you want to see any other games then the best you can hope for is deferred coverage, if even that. We've Eir BBC in the house as it gave us the P14 and HEC last season so will prob look at keeping that and getting the sky sports option for the HEC. At least it means getting Super Rugby and RC back next season which is a plus.

Digifriendly

molloyjh wrote: »

It looks like Irish rugby fans will only get to see the provincial games live. Seems Eir Sport 1 and TG4 are covering all of them. But if you want to see any other games then the best you can hope for is deferred coverage, if even that. We've Eir BBC in the house as it gave us the P14 and HEC last season so will prob look at keeping that and getting the sky sports option for the HEC. At least it means getting Super Rugby and RC back next season which is a plus.

Sky Sports don't hold rights to HEC. BT Sport do except that VM in Ireland and Ch. 4 in UK hold rights for one match per weekend.

Cookiemunster

Digifriendly wrote: »

Sky Sports don't hold rights to HEC. BT Sport do except that VM in Ireland and Ch. 4 in UK hold rights for one match per weekend.

To get BT sports you have to subscribe to Sky Sports Extra.

Masala

Confused Boardsie here... hope someone can throw some light on this for me.

I have my home telephone line + efibre broadband with Eir. My tv viewing is with Sky with full Sports and Movies. I had the BT sports as a free addon on the Sky as I was a Eir customer.

I have Vodafone fibre-optic cables running through my estate with Siro anf they are offering me a discount to move from Eir. Am I correct in saying at there is no benefit in staying with Eir?? I shoukd just go for the faster broadband with Vodafone and pay the extra €10 a month for the Sky addon on the old BT sports.

molloyjh

Masala wrote: »

Confused Boardsie here... hope someone can throw some light on this for me.

I have my home telephone line + efibre broadband with Eir. My tv viewing is with Sky with full Sports and Movies. I had the BT sports as a free addon on the Sky as I was a Eir customer.

I have Vodafone fibre-optic cables running through my estate with Siro anf they are offering me a discount to move from Eir. Am I correct in saying at there is no benefit in staying with Eir?? I shoukd just go for the faster broadband with Vodafone and pay the extra €10 a month for the Sky addon on the old BT sports.

Eir will give you all RWC games and all P14 provincial games. So if you move from Eir you'd need to subscribe to those separately to Sky Sports.

It's also worth checking whether your existing sports pack will give you BT Sports or not. I'm not sure how that works as I'm not a Sky Sports subscriber atm.

I still need to look at the pricing of the different options, but at this point I think the best bet would be to stick with Eir broadband (assuming the service is good enough) and upgrade your Sky package if needed. Its more than likely what I'll be doing as Eirs broadband is fast and reliable enough for our needs. I can then subscribe to Sky Sports Extra on top of my existing Sky package.

Zzippy

I paid upfront for a year's subscription for Eir, which included BT. Think I signed up in September 2018. Checked yesterday and I don't have BT any more, despite paying for it up front for 12 months...

Riskymove

Zzippy wrote: »

I paid upfront for a year's subscription for Eir, which included BT. Think I signed up in September 2018. Checked yesterday and I don't have BT any more, despite paying for it up front for 12 months...

unfortunately like the rest of us you subscribed to Eirsport not BT. Even if it was only BT that you wanted

BT happened to be part of that pack but now is not. Eir's T&Cs allow for content changes so not a lot can be done

I have now signed up for the BT add on to sky so am effectively double paying for the rest of my Eir sub

Zzippy

Riskymove wrote: »

unfortunately like the rest of us you subscribed to Eirsport not BT. Even if it was only BT that you wanted

BT happened to be part of that pack but now is not. Eir's T&Cs allow for content changes so not a lot can be done

I have now signed up for the BT add on to sky so am effectively double paying for the rest of my Eir sub

Surely taking the money up front and then not providing the content that was purchased is a breach of consumer rights?

Riskymove

Zzippy wrote: »

Surely taking the money up front and then not providing the content that was purchased is a breach of consumer rights?

well apparently not unfortunately

T&C outline that line up subject to change

I am not sure if you can cancel mid way through annual and get any kind of refund

obviously monthly subs can cancel

Zzippy

Riskymove wrote: »

well apparently not unfortunately

T&C outline that line up subject to change

I am not sure if you can cancel mid way through annual and get any kind of refund

obviously monthly subs can cancel

After a frustrating time talking to customer service I can confirm that you can cancel early and get a partial refund. There was no goodwill on offer e.g. extending the contract FOC or backdating the refund to 1 August. For what's left in the contract, I didn't bother and just gave notice to not renew when it's up in mid-October. I'll get all of the pool games on Eir and the knockouts on RTE. F*** them after that. The price for the reduced offering is absurd.