Q&A: Sir Richard Branson

It's rare these days that your DS editor falls victim to nerves. But it is with cold hands and a churning stomach that I enter the tiny abode of a personal hero. Sir Richard Branson is throwing a characteristically lavish bash in the grounds of his mansion in Kidlington, Oxfordshire to celebrate the launch of new entertainment channel Virgin 1.

He begins our Q&A with an anecdote from his wedding day, recalling a fearless stunt involving a helicopter, a box of Milk Tray and a broken leg. Gosh, he's so impressive. I want to be him. Forget Digital Spy, I'll edit your new Virgin customer mag for you, Sir! And I'll do it for free! No. No. Focus. Must concentrate on the matter at hand.

So we have Virgin 1 from Monday. Is it inevitable that we will be seeing a Virgin 2 and Virgin 3 in the near future?
"It seems to happen at Virgin that one leads on to two, two leads on to three - but we haven't actually got any plans for that yet. I think we'll start with Virgin 1 and see how we do before going on to two and three. But if I was a betting man I would say that some years from now there will be a two and a three. And a four and a five and a six, who's to know?"

Could a movies channel be on the cards?
"I think the way that we deal with this currently, offering 500 movies on demand, is better than having a movie channel. And with on demand, in the future it's quite possible that some distributors will let the likes of us have [a movie] at the same time as it is released in cinemas."

And tell us a bit about your sports news channel?
"The next thing we're doing is a new sports news channel, which will be launched in about six to eight weeks. That's definitely something that Virgin Media wants and needs because we lost our existing sports channel (Sky Sports News) in the Sky dispute. So we are working with Setanta in coming up with a slightly more Virgin-orientated sports channel."

How about a more general news channel?
"I think that for the time being we've got a whole lot of news channels. I guess at some stage we will do [our own] but there's nothing on the horizon."

Perhaps a more fun news channel?
"Well one new channel we're looking at is a news channel that looks at news that happened thirty days ago. Madeleine is an exception to the rule, but you get stories that break, often inaccurate stories. Thirty days on, the truth has come out and people then know that the original story was inaccurate, or a story breaks and no-one follows up on it. So there could well be a "news +30" channel. It's something a friend of mine came up with the idea for."

In the press conference earlier you mentioned a new show which is essentially a green version of MTV's Cribs. Are you going to be putting yourself forward as a subject?
"My good friend Natalie Imbruglia came up with the idea, and she would ideally be the face of it. I'd be very happy to be a subject matter for one of the green Cribs shows. Necker (Branson's private island in the Caribbean) will be the first 100% carbon neutral island in the world in about six months. We're gonna have three windmills and solar, battery and wave power."

How much influence have you had on the Virgin 1 schedule in general?
"I've said in the past that I can only take credit for anything anyone likes. Anything people don't like is not mine! In truth, as you can see from my lack of knowledge on television in general, I know very little."

Virgin 1 launches at 9pm on Monday. Will you be doing or saying anything to mark the occasion?
"I'm sure I'll press the button. I'm reading lots of epic Winston Churchill quotes and seeing if I can adapt any. I'm sure I'll come up with something appropriate."