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Virgin 1 launched last night in the UK, it’s the new flagship channel of the Virgin Media group. Available on terrestrial, satellite and cable services, its set to compete directly with Sky One.
The best of whats available on Virgin 1 currently seems to be Seinfeld and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (watch if you haven’t!). The networks slogan is “proper telly”, and I’ll be interested to see how they follow up that claim. The build up to the launch didn’t exactly blow me away, and the magnetism theme of the first ident kind of reminded me of this, that said, its all early days still.
For another launch of a television station that I thought was pretty impressive, check out the first five minutes of Five US.
yknow what – i freakin LOVE how they have a voice-over dude voicing as-live for these things.. it just makes the tv seem SO much more friendly… no offence to lisa hensley and robbie mcgregor here in oz, but it just makes a huge difference. Also – if ya havent seen THE RICHES yet, i highly, highly recommend. apart from that vrgin1 does kinda seem like the left-overs of american tv:)
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@m that’s great until the station has a meltdown or some really screwed up pr thing because the VO guy messed up :-p
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That show The Riches looks interesting. Help Me Help You is also hilarious, however it was cancelled, too smart for Americans like Arrested Development. Makes you wonder how Boston Legal survives. It is great. But it is going down in the ratings.
I likes the music in the promo.
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It feels like another channel full of US and UK junk in my opion. Havn’t watched it but can’t Virgin media get out more?
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:-/ Their programme line-up isn’t very appealing to me, although I could watch Seinfeld on a constant loop
And for anyone interested, The Riches will be screening on Foxtel’s new quality drama/film channel Showcase in December.
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Hmmm…Criminal Minds is the epitome of ‘generic’ cop show.
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And I know red is very associated with Virgin…but BBC One really owns that colour as far as tv goes…
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Ah John, whatever happened to Virgin Brand? It would have been red hot with all that’s been happening in the Branson world of late!
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The problem with Virgin is that they had about 6 months to launch it from conception. I don’t know any other channel like this that’s launched in a hurry.
So that explains the mostly American and English repeats line up. I read somewhere that they hope to get 60% homegrown programming in the next 6 months, along with a transition to widescreen in the new year
I’m not too excited about current Virgin 1 but the channel has an impressive budget and hopefully will have an impressive future
I love the branding and idents of the channel. They’re along the same lines as terrestrial TV or better established entertainment channels (E4, or Sky One ten years ago)
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please more virgin idents :3
I kidda liked the end of this clip though, now; everyone kinds of follow the same channel4 tendencies in idents…
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In France, Virgin channel will launch in first days on next december. This channel will be available in terrestrial television ans will replace “Europe 2 TV”.
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