On-Demand Growth for Virgin Media

LONDON, September 26:
Virgin Media announced a significant increase in on-demand viewing—up
from 34 million views in January to 45 million views in August—on its TV
platform.

This is an increase of 33
percent in less than a year and takes total views of on-demand content to 314
million over eight months. This also marks the first time ever that 50 percent
of Virgin Media's 3.5 million TV customers are watching on-demand regularly.

The latest viewing figures
reflect a recent survey, which found that Virgin Media was second only to
YouTube for on-demand viewing of any kind, putting the company ahead of popular
online services such as BBC iPlayer and Google.

The significant increase
in on-demand viewing has been driven by a raft of new content partners and
deals in TV, music, movies and kids programming, as well as the launch of the
popular BBC iPlayer on Virgin Media's TV service.

“We are clearly on the
precipice of some fundamental changes in the way people watch TV,” commented
Neil Berkett, the CEO of Virgin Media. “The giant leaps we have taken, this
year alone, show how popular on-demand viewing has become and as we continue to
add compelling programming and develop innovative new ways of accessing it, we
will certainly enter a new era of television.”

There were 16 million
views of Virgin Media's on-demand music service in August, its highest ever
level since the service was launched. This follows the launch of genre-based
music playlists, special features including concerts by the Sugarbabes and
Kanye West and highlights of the V Festival, alongside competitions to win
sought after gig tickets.

Kids’ programming saw an
uplift of 300,000 views in the last month alone, reaching 2.5 million views in
August. The jump was due to content such as Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Virgin Media's popular
Movies on-demand service, operated and managed by FilmFlex, experienced a 15
percent month-on-month growth in August, following a 9 percent rise in July.
This service has now totaled over 30 million buys and offers more first run
on-demand movies than any other service in Europe.

The take-up of BBC iPlayer
on Virgin Media's TV platform has continued to grow with an average of 11.5
million views per month. BBC iPlayer on Virgin Media's TV platform now accounts
for around a third of all BBC iPlayer views. Virgin Media was the first TV
platform to launch BBC iPlayer and remains the only TV provider to carry the
service.

—Anna Carugati