The agreement ends a row that began in early 2007 when a host of Sky channels were pulled from Virgin Media after the carriage deal between the two expired. The removal sparked a public dispute between the two companies where Virgin accused Sky of upping its charges.
In April last year Virgin filed a suit against Sky seeking the supply of the Sky Basics package at a 'reasonable commercial rate' and further accusing Sky of 'abuse of dominance' by forcing Virgin to accept an 85% cut in payments made for the carriage of its channels, such as Living and Trouble, on the Sky EPG.
And only last week Ofcom ruled that Sky broke broadcasting rules in a series of promotional ads, which referred to the removal of some of its channels from Virgin Media.
However today the two have finally agreed to two new deals and agreed to terminate all High Court proceedings.
The first agreement will see the return, on 13 November, of Sky's basic channels - including Sky1, Sky2, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 - to Virgin Media's cable TV service. The second agreement provides for the continued carriage of Virgin Media TV's basic channels - Living, Living 2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Trouble, Challenge and Virgin 1 - as part of Sky's retailed channel line-up on satellite. Both deals will run concurrently until June 2011.
The agreements include fixed annual carriage fees for the channels with both channel suppliers able to secure additional capped payments if their channels meet certain performance-related targets.
Virgin Media's chief executive, Neil Berkett, said: 'We are pleased to bring our carriage negotiations with Sky to a successful close. I believe this agreement represents a fair deal and is the right thing for our customers. We recognise the quality and popularity of Sky's channels and look forward to welcoming them back to Virgin Media's TV service. We are also pleased to secure Sky's continued carriage of the VMTV channels until June 2011.'
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