Sky Profits Could Be Hit By Virgin Channel Dispute

Sky has said that its operating profits could be reduced by £15 to £20 million if it is unable to resolve a deal with Virgin Media over its basic channels.

This figure includes the four months between now and the end of Sky’s financial year on June 30.

In a statement about the negotiations, Sky said: “Despite the constructive approach adopted by Sky throughout these negotiations, the recent behaviour of Virgin Media appears at odds with a genuine desire to conclude a commercial agreement and at this time there exists the real possibility that agreement will not be reached before expiry of the current contract at midnight on 28th February, 2007.”

On Friday, Virgin Media released a statement which said that it believed Sky had deliberately engineered a negative outcome to the negotiations in order to suppress competition (see Sky Channels To Be Removed From Virgin Media).

In today’s statement, Sky reiterated the comments it made on Friday (see

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Sky: 08702 40 40 40 www.sky.com Virgin Media: www.virginradio.co.uk