In full: Sky's statement on Virgin dispute

DS presents Sky's statement regarding the potential withdrawal of its basic channels from Virgin TV in full.

Availability of Sky channels on NTL/Virgin

We just wanted to keep you updated, given what NTL/Virgin have been saying today. First things first, as far as we’re concerned, negotiations are continuing, and we hope these will be completed successfully without anyone missing out on their favourite shows.

We want Sky One, Sky Two, Sky Sports News and the award-winning Sky News to remain available to NTL/Virgin customers. We know that they are missing out on other Sky channels like Sky Three and Sky Arts, so we’ve been talking to NTL/Virgin about these as well.

At Sky, we love great TV. We’ve increased the amount we spend on our channels by more than two thirds over the past few years. That’s why we can bring you great shows like the newest episodes of Lost, 24 and The Simpsons, as well as acclaimed original productions like Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather.

So we hope people will see through angry statements from NTL/Virgin and encourage them to come back and agree a fair price for some of the finest shows on TV.

We believe in giving our customers more for less. When we launched our new broadband service last year, we discovered just how much people were being charged by cable and BT. So we offered Sky TV customers Sky Broadband with up to 16Mb download speeds and a wireless router for just £10 a month, vs £35 a month for an up to 10Mb service with NTL/Virgin. Great television and big savings are why more than 8 million families are choosing to be with Sky.