Virgin Media adds 41,400 digital TV subscribers in Q1

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
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LONDON — Virgin Media Inc. (Nasdaq:VMED) announces results for the quarter ended March 31, 2009.

Television

  • TV customer net increase of 30,600 (Q1-08: 36,800) to 3.65m (Q1-08: 3.51m)
  • Video-on-demand (VOD) usage rises to 53% of digital customers (Q1-08: 46%)
  • Highest ever average VOD views of 55m per month (Q1-08: 36m)

Total TV net additions were 30,600 in the quarter (Q4-08: 44,500; Q1-08: 36,800).

Customers are increasingly using our VOD services. On a monthly basis, 1.9m of our digital TV customers now use VOD, representing a reach of 53%. Average views per user per month in the quarter were 29 compared to 24 a year ago. Average monthly views were 55m in the quarter, up 4% on the previous quarter and up 51% on the same quarter last year.

We have recently concluded a dynamic advertising trial on our VOD service. Advertisements from leading brands were inserted around on-demand programs from VMtv, Channel 4 and Warner TV to approximately 100,000 homes. We are assessing the results from the trial to enable us to move forward in offering a compelling opportunity for advertisers and exploiting the potential for an additional revenue stream.

We currently have around 270 hours of HD content on our VOD platform. This consists of around 30 movies at any one time and popular TV programs from the BBC and ITV as well as documentaries from National Geographic and highly rated US series such as Entourage. We have recently added HD content to the BBC iPlayer service on our TV platform.

In the first quarter, we also began a process to add more HD channels to our channel line-up. The company is now in negotiations with a number of broadcasters with the aim of launching these channels in the third quarter.

At the quarter-end, we had 611,900 V+ DVR subscribers. This represents a penetration level of just 17% of our digital subscribers. Based on our experience, VOD subscribers and V+ DVR users are less likely to churn.

CONSUMER OPERATIONS STATISTICS ('000s)   Q1 2009  Q4 2008  Q1 2008
--------------------------------------   -------  -------  -------
Consumer RGUs
 Television                              3,651.6  3,621.0  3,514.9
  Digital TV                             3,510.4  3,469.0  3,311.4
Net Consumer RGU adds
 Television                                 30.6     44.5     36.8
  Digital TV                                41.4     61.1     57.9

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