In response to Sky's statement published in The Daily Telegraph this morning, Virgin Media said that BSkyB had misrepresented its offer for its five channels including Sky One and Sky News to be carried on Virgin Media's recently rebranded cable service.
Sky today said it would cut the price of its three channels by 5p to 90p, but it should also be allowed to sell its channels and programmes directly to Virgin Media customers if a deal cannot be agreed.
While Sky maintains that it constitutes a 30% increase to current carriage rates, Virgin Media says the real figure is much higher.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: "BSkyB claims it offered Virgin Media several concessions and a basic price of £32.4m for its channels but this public offer fails to mention the small print in the contract, which has onerous minimum revenue guarantees that double the overall price as we've always maintained. In the light of the latest revised offer it remains, however, that Sky has no intention of agreeing a deal on commercial grounds."
Virgin Media added that the offer was not based on pence-per-subscriber, but on a flat fee, which works in Sky's favour.
Sky has threatened to pull the five channels from Virgin Media's service on Thursday if this dispute is not settled. This would be a considerable blow to Virgin's 3.3m subscribers as many of Sky's hit series, such as 'Lost', are only half way through their run.
Yesterday, Virgin Media secured video-on-demand rights to 'Lost' from US broadcaster ABC, which makes the hit show, in a bid to hang onto its existing customers.
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