Branson puts stop to 'Sky Snooze' joke

Richard Branson has ordered the removal of Virgin Media's "Sky Snooze" on-screen jibe at its rival.

After Sky's basic channels were removed from the Virgin Media cable service yesterday, channel 602 - the former Sky News slot - was renamed "Sky Snooze try BBC".

However, last night, Mr Branson told MediaGuardian.co.uk: "I have asked them to take it down. We do not mean any disrespect to Sky News. I think it is a very good news channel."

Mr Branson, who is out of the country, said he had been unaware of the spoof channel name manoeuvre.

A Sky spokesman said: "Sky applauds Sir Richard Branson's decision to halt Virgin Media's childish mocking of Sky News and our other basic channels.

"After Virgin Media's negative comments about the quality of our channels in recent days, it is refreshing to hear Sir Richard's praise for Sky News as a "very good news channel" and we call on him to take action to restore our basic channels to Virgin Media customers.

"If Virgin Media truly believes they are not worth the asking price of 3p per customer per day, Sky invites Virgin to provide access to its platform so that we can retail our channels directly to customers."

Cable viewers lost access to channels such as Sky One, Sky News and Sky Sports News yesterday because the two companies could not agree on what Virgin should pay for them.

Channel 515, formerly Sky Sports News, was renamed "Old Sky Sports Snooze" yesterday. Sky dismissed the stunt as "childish".

"This kind of childishness can only irritate customers who are loyal viewers of our channels," said a spokesman yesterday.

Last night, Sky launched an advertising campaign to try to tempt dissatisfied cable customers to its digital satellite service.

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