Virgin Media

Virgin Media Incorporated

File:Virgin Media.png
Company type	Public: (Nasdaq: VMED)
Industry	Cable Communications
Founded	NTL: 1991; Telewest: 1984
Headquarters	Corporate: New York City, United States Operational: Hook, England, UK
Key people	James Mooney (Chairman) Neil Berkett CEO Richard Branson (Figurehead)
Products	Cable television Broadband Telephone Mobile phone
Revenue	$16.5 billion (2008)
Number of employees	22,500 (2005)
Website	virginmedia.com

Virgin Media Inc. (formerly known as ntl:Telewest, after a merger of NTL Incorporated with Telewest Global, Inc.), became in 2006 the first "quadruple-play" media company in the United Kingdom, bringing together a service consisting of television, Internet, mobile phone and fixed-line telephone services. Virgin Media represents a prime example of telecommunication convergence. As the only major cable company in the United Kingdom, it competes in the market with one other major pay-TV operator, satellite-based BSkyB, and with Freeview, the free-to-air terrestrial service. While US-headquartered, Virgin Media only operates in the United Kingdom, with headquarters in Hook, Hampshire and it's financial base being in Bradford. On 1 July 2007 it emerged that the private equity investment firm The Carlyle Group had initiated discussions to acquire Virgin Media Inc. but recent movements in the global credit-market have put potential acquisition opportunities on hold.

History

Telewest (1984-2006)

Main article: Telewest (former)

Telewest originated in Croydon in 1984 under the name "Croydon Cable". In 1988 United Cable of Denver, US, acquired Croydon Cable. Franchises extended the company scope in Edinburgh and the south-west and south-east of England. In 1989 United Cable merged with United Artists Cable International. In 1991 United Artists merged with their largest shareholder TCI (now Liberty Media), to form the largest cable operator in the US. TCI and US West announced a joint venture, and in 1992 the joint venture company became Telewest Communications. In 1995 Telewest merged with SBC Communications, adding franchises in the Midlands and North West serving 1.3 million homes.

In 1998 Telewest announced a merger with General Cable, and acquired an outstanding interest in Birmingham Cable, adding a further 1.7 million franchise homes in Yorkshire, west London and Birmingham. Telewest purchased the remaining 50% stake in Cable London from NTL in 1999, adding 0.4 million franchise homes in north London. In April 2000 Telewest merged with Flextech, and in November extended its cable network with the acquisition of Eurobell, taking the total number of homes passed to 4.9 million. The company later became known as "Telewest Broadband" in a re-brand during 2001.

In subsequent years Telewest experienced many financial problems due to huge debts incurred as a result of constructing its cable network and of acquiring other cable companies and assets. In 2004 Telewest re-structured itself by swapping its unsecured debt for 98.5% of its shares. The London FTSE then de-listed the consolidated shares. Major Telewest shareholders included Huff and Liberty Media (run by cable tycoon John Malone). Afterwards the company emerged from financial restructuring and completed a merger with NTL in 2006.

Telewest also provided the broadband service 'Blueyonder', using the same cable system as its television service.

NTL (1993-2006)

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The NTL logo

Barclay Knapp and George Blumenthal, the founders of the cellular network company Cellular Communications, Inc. (sold to Airtouch in 1996), established International CableTel in 1993. They founded CableTel in order to take advantage of the deregulation of the UK cable market. Initially, Cabletel acquired local cable-franchises covering Guildford, Northern Ireland and parts of Central Scotland and South Wales. In 1996 CableTel acquired National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), the privatised UK Independent Broadcasting Authority transmission-network. In 1998 CableTel adopted "NTL" as its new name.

The company spent heavily on expanding its network and on acquisitions — including the consumer cable division of Cable and Wireless, bought for $10bn, and partly paid for with a $5.5bn investment from France Telecom. NTL also began to expand outside the UK in 2000, buying into markets on continental Europe and in Ireland.

A collapse of the telecommunications markets from mid-2000 dealt a serious blow to the company. This, combined with NTL's rapid acquisition of local cable-operators, led to severe problems of integration. NTL, struggling to cope with rapid expansion and suffering from significant customer-service problems, then had to contend with the setting up in November 2002 of one of the UK's first consumer lobby-groups, nthellworld, with ntl:hell following shortly after.

Devalued and struggling with debts of around $18bn, NTL sought Chapter-11 bankruptcy-protection in May 2002 in order to organise a refinancing deal. The company did not emerge from protection until January 2003, having converted around $11 billion of debt into shares. Technically, this amounted to the largest debt default in US corporate history. The company reduced its debt to $6.4bn. A re-organisation split NTL itself into NTL Inc. (covering the UK and Irish markets) and NTL Europe Inc. (for the French, Swiss and German parts of the corporation). New executives replaced the NTL president, CEO and co-founder Barclay Knapp, as well as Stephen A. Carter, the MD and COO.

After exiting from Chapter-11 protection, NTL produced an operating profit. In 2004 it announced plans to split its broadcasting division off from the main company. In December 2004 NTL sold its broadcast-unit to a consortium led by Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group (MCG) for £1.27 billion. (Macquarie renamed the division Arqiva in May 2005.) This sale allowed NTL to focus on its "core businesses" of providing communications packages and cable-services.

In autumn 2004 NTL purchased the remaining shares of the Internet service provider (ISP) virgin.net, originally a joint venture between NTL and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group.

By 2005 NTL's UK network consisted of a 7,800 km fibre backbone with the potential to reach 8.4 million residential homes and around 610,000 businesses. In January of that year, NTL started rolling out Video On Demand. With content selected by NTL, this service covered genres including music videos, children's programming and adult entertainment. This provided an extension to the basic "pay per view" services the company offered for film and sport content. The new service allowed customers to rewind, fast-forward and pause content.

Despite NTL Ireland turning a profit, in May 2005, NTL sold its Dublin, Galway and Waterford cable-business — which it had acquired in 1999 for €825 million from the Irish government-owned entities Telecom Éireann (60% of shares) and RTE (40% of shares) — to UGC Europe for €325 million; this after having spent in excess of €100 million on network infrastructure. Thus NTL made a gross loss of €500 million (more than 50%) over what it had paid. As of May 2007 Liberty continues to use the NTL brand in Ireland, under license.

By July 2005, NTL had cut its debt to £1.445 billion, with an operating cash flow of £178 million. The company had 3.2 million customers buying at least one service from it, with the 1.4 million subscribers to broadband services making NTL the market leader in this field.

NTL Internet

After trials in the Guildford area from summer 1999, NTL launched its original broadband services at the same time that NTL acquired the CATV business of Cable and Wireless (Spring 2000). In the "original NTL" (also known as "Langley") areas, NTL has always supplied broadband services via DOCSIS cable-modems. In these areas the digital television set-top boxes (STBs) used an incompatible standard, DAVIC.

The roll-out of broadband services in the ex-Cable and Wireless franchises started in mid-2001. Initially, NTL provided ex-Cable and Wireless subscribers with broadband through the set-top box also used for digital television services, adopting the rationale that subscribers could self-install. Accordingly, NTL supplied a "Self Install Kit" consisting of connecting cable, adapters and an installation CD. Following demonstrated problems, NTL gradually introduced cable-modems and phased out the self-install approach to set-top box broadband.

Although the set-top boxes had the capability of supporting of higher speeds (up to 4 Mbit/s), NTL did not make speeds higher than 1 Mbit/s available via set-top boxes, due to degradation of the digital television (DTV) service.

NTL eventually replaced the Pace set-top boxes with Samsung models which used a dual-processor architecture, overcoming the shortcomings of the Pace, and which could give much better downstream performance. The Samsung set-top box had its own limitations, with initially only a 10 Mbit/s single duplex connection on the customer side of the device. However, with the advent of higher "Tiers of Service" of 10, then 20 Mbit/s downstream, plus the reducing cost of NTL's cable modems, NTL came to supply all subscribers with cable modems.

A historical view of NTL cable modems appears at the Chetnet site.

ntl:freedom

ntl:freedom, an ADSL-based alternative for customers not living in a cabled area, become "Virgin Media Freedom" before being folded into Virgin Media Beyond Cable.

Virgin.net

File:Virgin.net.GIF

The Virgin.net logo

Virgin.net operated as an Internet service provider (ISP) in the UK from November 1996 onwards. Once a joint venture between NTL and the Virgin Group, the ISP became wholly owned by NTL in 2004. It sold a range of ADSL broadband packages through BT landlines to those living outside areas served by NTL's cable-television network. Virgin.net broadband customers could receive up to 8 Mbit/s downstream and 400 kbit/s upstream, with usage-allowances depending on which package the user took. Virgin.net also offered bundled phone-services via Carrier Preselect (CPS) to broadband subscribers. The service offered various usage-allowances depending on which package a user took. Virgin.net also offered subscription-based and subscription-free dial-up Internet access. Prior to acquiring Virgin.net, NTL offered a similar package called NTL Freedom.

On 8 February 2007, the services provided by Virgin.net became integrated into the new Virgin Media brand as Virgin Media Beyond Cable.

NTL:Telewest (March 2006 - February 2007)

From late 2003 discussions commenced on a merger between Telewest and NTL. Thanks to their geographically distinct areas, NTL and Telewest had co-operated previously, as in re-directing potential customers living outside their respective areas. On 3 October 2005, NTL announced a USD$6 billion purchase of Telewest, forming one of the largest media companies in the UK. The merger agreement as structured would have left NTL having to negotiate with BBC Worldwide (the BBC's commercial arm) due to a change-of-ownership clause written into the agreement for UKTV, a joint venture with Telewest's Flextech content division. To prevent this, Telewest instead acquired NTL.

The parties completed the merger on 3 March 2006, making the merged company the UK's largest cable-provider, with more than 90% of the market. Once merged, the combined company renamed itself to NTL Incorporated, with ex-NTL shareholders controlling 75% of the stock and ex-Telewest shareholders 25%. Nine of the eleven directors of the new board came from NTL and two from Telewest.

The merger of Virgin Mobile and NTL:Telewest

In December 2005 NTL:Telewest and Virgin Mobile announced that talks had taken place regarding a merger. (Note that Virgin Mobile, as an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), does not own or operate a mobile phone network: it simply reached a commercial agreement with the T-Mobile GSM 1800 network to resell airtime branded as "Virgin Mobile". The combination proved so successful that T-Mobile quickly added Virgin Mobile's subscriber connections to its own in order to boost network numbers.)

Virgin Mobile's independent directors rejected the original bid of £817 million ($1.4 billion), taking the view that NTL Incorporated's bid "undervalued the business". Sir Richard Branson reportedly expressed confidence that a re-structured deal could go ahead, and in January 2006 NTL Incorporated increased its offer to £961 m (372p per share). On 4 April 2006, NTL Incorporated announced a £962.4 m recommended offer for Virgin Mobile. According to reports, Branson accepted a mix of shares and cash, making him a 10.7% shareholder of the combined company.

The takeover completed on 4 July 2006, setting up the UK's first 'quadruple play' media company, bringing together television, Internet broadband, mobile phone and fixed-line phone services. The deal included a 30-year exclusive branding agreement that saw NTL adopt the "Virgin" name after it completed its merger with Telewest. As a result, on 8 November 2006 NTL:Telewest announced it would change its name to "Virgin Media Inc".

Rumoured private equity bid (2006)

On 16 August 2006, The Times reported that the ntl Incorporated group could become the subject of a £10bn takeover bid from a private-equity firm consortium made up of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain, Cinven, Blackstone and Providence Private Equity, with a formal approach expected within a fortnight. The £10bn figure would include £6bn worth of debt already on the NTL balance-sheet. Additional new banking facilities would probably fund the private-equity bid. No such bid ever materialised, however.

ITV merger proposal (2006)

On Thursday, 9 November 2006, NTL announced that it had approached commercial television broadcaster ITV about a proposed merger, after a similar announcement by ITV. BSkyB effectively blocked the merger on 17 November 2006 when it controversially bought a 17.9% stake in ITV plc, a move that attracted anger from NTL shareholder Richard Branson, and an investigation from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom. On 6 December 2006 NTL announced that it had complained to the Office of Fair Trading about BSkyB's move, and that it would withdraw its attempt to buy ITV plc, stating that it did not believe that it could currently make a deal on favourable terms.

The Virgin Media era

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Sky's letter counteracting Virgin Media's removal of non-premium Sky channels.

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NTL Group's services — previously marketed under the NTL, Telewest and Virgin.net brands — merged with Virgin Mobile under the "Virgin Media" brand on 8 February 2007, referred to by Virgin as V Day.

Virgin Media vs. BSkyB

A channel agreement for Virgin Media to keep non-premium Sky channels ended at midnight on 1 March 2007. Virgin Media and Sky failed to reach agreement on the issue, and Sky reacted by posting a letter to the public in major UK newspapers on 28 February 2007.

Despite Sky's letter, Virgin Media blamed Sky for tyrannizing them and inciting consumers to switch. The companies failed to resolve their differences, and subsequently after midnight on 1 March 2007, Virgin Media replaced the Sky1, Sky2, Sky Travel, Sky Travel Extra, Sky Sports News and Sky News channel content with a standard message. Sky attributed part of the rate-rise to the fact that the new deal would also include Sky3, Sky Arts and undisclosed high definition and video on demand content. Sky said the deal would cost only 3p per customer per day (roughly £35,000,000 per year), but Virgin said that a minimum payment-guarantee included in the contract meant that the actual amount due would exceed twice the current payment. On 9 May 2008 it was reported that the companies had held talks to resolve the dispute.

Virgin Central, an on-demand service, has recently gained the rights to begin showing episodes of the television show Lost (already shown on Sky1), and other shows including Alias and The OC. This service extends the on-demand service previously known as Teleport TV. Teleport TV now renamed as TV Choice, remains available, offering recently-broadcast shows and other shows and series.

On 4 November 2008 it was announced that an agreement had been struck for Sky's Basic channels – including Sky1, Sky2, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 to return to Virgin Media from 13 November 2008 until 12 June 2011. In exchange will be provided continued carriage of Virgin Media Television's channels – Living, Living2, Bravo, Bravo +1, Trouble, Challenge and Virgin1 for the same period.

The agreements include fixed annual carriage fees of £30m for the channels with both channel suppliers able to secure additional capped payments if their channels meet certain performance-related targets. As part of the agreements, both Sky and Virgin Media have agreed to terminate all High Court proceedings against each other relating to the carriage of their respective basic channels.

Key dates and events

• 2 March 2007 - The National Consumer Council accused Sky and Virgin of "behaving like children" and stated that at the end of March 2007 it would consider whether or not to raise a super-complaint against them "that will help to knock heads together".

• 5 March 2007 - Virgin Media threatened to take legal action against BSkyB if the matter remained unresolved in 30 days.

• 12 April 2007 - Virgin Media filed a legal case in the High Court against BSkyB under the UK Competition Act 1998 and Article 82 of the EC Treaty. BSkyB claimed that Virgin Media made little effort to further arbitration.

• 20 July 2007 - an announcement appeared to the effect that Virgin had struck a deal with Setanta Sports to offer six Setanta channels free-of-charge to XL- package customers, including 46 live Premier League football matches, 60 live Scottish Premier League games and US PGA Tour golf.

Market share

Broadband

Virgin Broadband currently ranks as the UK's second-largest broadband supplier. Figures show Virgin to have just over 3.6 Million customers, which would translate as a 35% market share across the UK; its major competitor, BT Broadband, had a 40% market share.

Television

Virgin Television has currently around 3.4 million subscribers.

3.2 million of them are Digital Cable. The other 200,000 are Analogue Cable.

Virgin makes up around 30% of the UK's TV distributors, with Freeview having the most, and Sky Digital being second.

Services

Virgin Broadband

The broadband division combines NTL's cable-broadband operations (broadband Internet access connections through cable), Blueyonder (Telewest's cable-broadband operations) and Virgin.net (ADSL; broadband internet access through a non-cable telephone line). The cable service operates through both stand-alone cable modems and television set-top boxes.

Current download speeds offered to cable users include 2 Mbit/s, 10 Mbit/s and 20 Mbit/s, having upload speeds of 256 kbit/s, 384 kbit/s, and 768 kbit/s respectively. Non-cable (ADSL) users have options of up-to 1 Mbit/s and up-to 8 Mbit/s. As with all ADSL services, actual speed available varies depending on distance from the telephone exchange.

Virgin Media also offers dial-up Internet services. Virgin Phone subscribers have two options; pay-as-you-go at 3p/minute, or a fixed monthly fee of £14.99 for unlimited usage. Subscribers with a BT telephone line have only the option of pay-as-you-go, costing from 1p/minute. Those with a Virgin Media phone package receive a discount on the normal broadband subscription, paying £4.50 per month.

Virgin Media announced that from February 2008 all customers currently on their 4Mb price plan would automatically be upgraded for free to 10Mb. This process took place region by region and was completed by the 31 September 2008.

From 31 March Virgin Media will be giving a free Netgear wireless router to all new cable customers taking size L or XL broadband or existing size M and L cable broadband customers upgrading to size L or XL. A non-refundable, one time service charge of £40 will apply to all new cable broadband customers taking the size M broadband service and existing size L and XL customers taking the wireless router without upgrading their broadband service. The Wireless router remains the property of Virgin Media at all times. For a further £20 a USB adapter or a PCMCIA laptop card can be added. All equipment includes a 2 year service warranty dependent on the customer remaining a Virgin Media broadband customer for the duration of that period. They also offer Newsgroup access free to all broadband customers.

Virgin Media announced in June that it was removing its 25p per minute 0906 technical support line and making all calls either free, for Virgin Media telephone users or local rate 0845 for those without Virgin's telephone service.

Bandwidth throttling

The cable broadband services do not have a specific bandwidth cap; however, on 3 May 2007 Virgin introduced "Subscriber Traffic Management" (STM). In particular, between the hours of 10am and 9pm the service provider may throttle down bandwidth for customers "downloading an unusually large amount at these times" (in line with one's package: 500 MB for the 2 Mb/sec package, 2000 MB for the 10 Mb/sec package and 3 GB for the 20 Mb/sec package) such that the speed of one's connection will decrease. According to Virgin Media, this scheme aims to regulate bandwidth-usage and to ensure that all customers get a fair share of the service provided. The scheme has been criticised as being overly punitive. Once the download limit is exceeded, the bandwidth throttle remains in place for 5 hours. The actual speed decrease depends on the package subscribed to, and ranges from 50% for the 2 Mb/sec to 75% for all others.

A user on the 2Mb package will currently be throttled to 1Mb/s (50%) after downloading 500MB between the 4pm and 9pm "peak" window .

Virgin Media broadband, based on DOCSIS, runs over coaxial cable television connections in those areas with Cable TV and ADSL lines in areas that do not. Unlike ADSL connections, DOCSIS-based cable broadband remains largely unaffected by line attenuation, and provides long lease-time dynamic (not static) IP addresses to subscribers (based on the MAC address of the client device). Controversially, Virgin Media have introduced Bandwidth Throttling on DOCSIS-based cable broadband connections in all areas. Previously, these connections were all managed by NTL:telewest prior to the Virgin Media merger and were not subject to bandwidth throttling. This has caused great upset among many old NTL:telewest customers in the regions that it affects.

In its fourth quarter results in 2006, Virgin Media announced plans to launch a 50 Mbit/s service in the summer of 2008. It will be throttled too, although the current limits before it begins are unknown.

Virgin Media reportedly started conducting trials of a 100 Mbit/s broadband service on its cable network in April 2006.

Proxy servers

Virgin Media previously redirected web browser traffic on port 80 through transparent proxy servers with a view to saving on bandwidth costs and improving browsing performance by caching often-visited sites. This did not apply to any other form of traffic. Up to 16 proxy server addresses hosted each area The use of proxy servers (generally, not specific to Virgin Media) also caused problems for websites which use less sophisticated methods to identify IP addresses to ban and/or track users. Some users of Mac OS X had also experienced incompatibilities when using some sites (including myspace.com).

Virgin Media removed the use of all transparent proxy servers in Spring 2007.

Crackdown on illegal filesharing of copyrighted material

On 2 April 2008 The Daily Telegraph reported that Virgin Media were going to start a trial to take action against subscribers who are illegally downloading copyrighted material from internet Peer-to-peer (p2p) services. Information of offenders would be provided by the British Phonographic Industry, and then Virgin Media and the BPI sends a warning letter to the customer. Virgin Media and the BPI have since denied reports of any agreement or pilot scheme and say they are only in talks on the matter. However, at least one person claims to have received a letter threatening disconnection. Although the UK government currently backs plans to ban p2p users from the internet, it may soon be overturned by strong condemnation from the European Parliament on the grounds of privacy issues and the importance of internet access. In July 2008 the BBC reported that 800 Virgin Media customers who the BPI claim are sharing copyrighted files are being sent warning letters in envelopes marked "if you don't read this your broadband connection could be disconnected". At least one recipient of the letter has denied wrongdoing by any authorised user of his broadband connection.

Virgin TV

See also: List of channels on Virgin TV

Virgin Television, the digital cable television service from Virgin Media, currently ranks as the UK's second largest pay TV service, having 3.2m subscribers, compared to BSkyB's 8.2m as of Q3 2007.

Virgin's digital cable television uses Nagravision 1 for encryption.

Currently 55% of UK households have access to Virgin's network, while anyone in the UK with a line-of-sight view of the Astra & Eurobird satellites has the ability to receive Sky's service. In areas it services, Virgin Television ranks as the number one provider of pay TV. Virgin plans to expand availability in the rest of the UK using DSL technology. It plans to do this both by signing a contract with another telecoms company and by installing its own equipment in BT exchanges.

As of 2024 Virgin Media functions as a single company; however, it continues to rely on three existing infrastructures: the Langley-based NTL, Bromley-based Cable and Wireless and Knowsley-based Telewest platforms.

In May 2008 Virgin Media began their "long term" region-by-region analogue television service switch off project, beginning with Coventry and Glasgow.

In areas where analogue transmission will be turned off but no digital replacement introduced customers will be offered Virgin's off-network services including a Virgin-branded digital terrestrial television set-top box, with the company looking at developing a television-over-DSL service for areas outside its cable network in 2009. Analogue subscribers in areas where digital cable services are already available will be offered transfers to new packages.

The firm has signalled it wants to use the capacity to provide faster broadband internet.

Virgin have announced that they are looking for trialists to test a 'Next Generation Television' service in Kent during 2008, starting with Ashford.

Non-digital areas

In a few areas Virgin Media has still not upgraded its network to offer digital television and broadband. In these areas Virgin Media only offers customers analogue cable-television. Parts of Bolton, Knowsley, Leicester, Maidenhead/Slough, Radcliffe, Southampton and the BT owned Milton Keynes and Westminster franchises remain analogue-only.

Also the five terrestrial tv channels are carried FTA on Virgin's analogue cable tv network along with BBC News, CNBC Europe (Ex-NTL)/Bloomberg UK (Ex-Telewest) time shared with E4, Disney Cinemagic (Ex-NTL) & Hallmark Channel (Ex-Telewest). However to view these feeds you need to have a tv that is capable of tuning frequencies used for cable tv.

Non-cabled areas

On 2 April 2007 Virgin Media began to offer a digital TV service called Free TV to all of the UK using the Freeview digital terrestrial television service which is available to 3 out of 4 of UK homes.

The set-top box is roughly the same size as a video tape (19cm X 9cm). The box also comes with a remote control and remote control extender, which means the box can be hidden out of sight, whilst still being able to use the remote. Over 40 digital channels including Virgin 1 and over 25 digital radio stations are available with an 8 day programme guide, access to interactive content via the Red Button and full customer service support is available online and over the phone.

The set-top-box will be free to any Virgin Media non-cable customer taking the up the Bundle One subscription package. For non-cable customers taking a broadband service on its own, a one-off charge of £40 will apply, non-cable customers may purchase up to five additional set-top-boxes.

The next phase of this service is a combined IPTV and digital terrestrial television service similar to BT Vision and Tiscali TV. Virgin Media have signed an agreement with Cable & Wireless to become the unbundled local loop (LLU) network provider, providing access to 4 million homes outside of the Virgin Media cable franchise network and would include linear pay broadcast channels and video on demand. This was originally scheduled to be released during 2008 but it has been delayed until at least 2009 and scaled back as Virgin Media concentrate on improving its cable broadband proposition instead of focusing on competing with Sky in the premium television market.

PVR and high-definition services

Main article: V+

Virgin TV brands its High-definition Television (HDTV) and Digital Video Recorder (PVR) service as V+. Virgin Media (when branded as Telewest) became the first UK broadcaster to offer HDTV, launching its service several months earlier than that of its chief competitor, Sky Digital. The service uses a PVR set-top-box, with three tuners and a 160 GB hard disk for up to 80 hours' recording. The presence of three tuners means that V+ can record two channels at the same time while viewers watch a third. This contrasts with most other PVR systems such as Sky+, which supports only two tuners.

Video on demand

Virgin Media ranks as the UK's largest provider of on-demand content, with over 3 million Video on Demand (VoD) customers.

The company currently brands its VOD service as "On Demand". In contrast to the Sky Anytime system from Sky Digital, Virgin Media offers a "true" VOD system. The service allows customers to stream programmes as and when they want to watch them from servers at the customer's local head-end. As the broadcaster automatically stores content on Virgin Media servers, this removes the need to pre-record many programmes. Users can search through a large library of programmes (called "TV Choice") from content-providers including the BBC, Channel 4, HBO, the Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, CBS Paramount, Buena Vista, Alliance Atlantis, Warner Brothers, Viacom (MTV, Paramount, Nickelodeon), Current TV, Teachers' TV , BabyTV and Virgin Media Television; and watch them when they want to. Subscribers to Virgin Media's premier television package, Size: XL, have the content included in their subscription, while other customers can pay £5 per month for unlimited access, or can utilise pay-per-view. In addition, Virgin Media offers a "Catch-up" service, which includes a free 7-day "watch-again" feature for selected television programmes broadcast by the BBC, Channel 4 and selected Virgin Media Television channels. The service also offers over 500 films (service-branded "FilmFlex"), and more than 1000 music-videos. As of 12 July 2007 the music videos became free for all XL customers: see http://diginews.name/digital/virgin-media-free-music-on-demand/

Additionally, it was revealed that one-third of BBC television programmed viewed on its iPlayer service are accessed through Virgin Media's On Demand service and that 50% of all Virgin Media customers "regularly" use On Demand services.

Virgin Media Television (formerly Flextech)

Main article: Virgin Media Television

Virgin Media Television logo

Virgin Media Television logo

Virgin Media Television, the content subsidiary of Virgin Media (formerly called Flextech), has a number of wholly-owned channels (including Bravo, LIVING, Trouble and Challenge). Additionally, Virgin Media Television has a 50% share in UKTV (with BBC Worldwide), and owns Sit-Up Ltd, which operates the Screenshop, bid tv, price-drop tv and speed auction tv channels.

In June 2007 Virgin announced plans to launch a new television channel on Freeview and cable, replacing Ftn on Freeview. The new channel, "Virgin1", launched on 1 October 2007 and broadcasts a mix of British and American programming.

Virgin Mobile

Main article: Virgin Mobile UK

Virgin Media owns Virgin Mobile Holdings (UK) plc, a virtual mobile-network operator in the United Kingdom, with over four million subscribers.

Virgin Phone

Virgin Phone offers landline telephone services; it ranks as the number-two service behind the former UK state monopoly, BT Group.

AWOMO

AWOMO, or A World of My Own, is a pay-to-play game website. It is aimed to rival Steam and also to provide gamers with their own version of Second Life.

Corporate affairs

Virgin Media have entered into a 30-year licensing agreement with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Enterprises Limited to licence out all the relevant Virgin sub-brands for a term of 30 years, with a ten year opt-out clause. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Entertainment Investment Holdings Limited owns 34,260,959 Virgin Media common stock as of February 2007.

The present company formed in 2006 as a merger of the operations of Virgin Mobile and of the UK's primary cable television operator, NTL:Telewest. Virgin Media ranks currently as the UK's second-largest broadband Internet and fixed-line telephone company (after BT)[2] and as the fifth-largest mobile phone group. It functions as the United Kingdom's second-largest pay TV provider (after BSkyB) and third-largest digital TV provider (after BSkyB and Freeview). Virgin Media dominates cable operations in the United Kingdom, controlling more than 90% of the market. In August 2007, Virgin Media's CEO Stephen Burch resigned following boardroom rows with chairman Jim Mooney and key investor Bill Huff.

Business-divisions

• ntl:Telewest Business (part of the Virgin Media Group) offers commercial telephony and data-network services that provide a significant portion of its revenue-stream. ntl:Telewest Business originated in 2006 through the merger of the business divisions of ntl Incorporated (ntl Business) and Telewest Global Inc (Telewest Business). It serves the following markets:

• public sector: sells flexible services offering communication solutions.
• corporate and enterprise: portfolio of products and services, offering integration, reliability and security
• small and medium businesses: offers a range of broadband, telephony and site-to-site connectivity products and services
• service-providers: delivers wholesale and carrier-services to a range of customers, including mobile-operators, Internet service-providers and other telcos.

Advertising

Virgin Media launched to much fanfare in February 2007, with a public relations event and an expensive advertising campaign which covered major UK television-channels, newspapers and billboards. In an effort to increase awareness of the group and its services, Virgin Media's campaign used bright red colours to portray its brand-image. Recent television advertising featured actress Uma Thurman and comedienne Ruby Wax, and currently features actor Samuel L Jackson, whilst the print advertising features bold typography. Virgin Media also sponsor the Channel 4 reality TV show Big Brother.

Redundancies

In March 2007, 150 workers at Virgin Media's Teesside site received notices of redundancy that went into effect in July. The workers had the option to relocate to other sites, such as in Manchester (approximately 120 miles (190 km) away). Several moved to other departments at the Teesside site.

In July 2007 Virgin Media also axed its "Customer Experience Team" (responsible for training and coaching staff using call-monitoring and feedback processess) and have also announced the outsourcing of their business customer-services, despite poor feedback.

In September 2007, 60 IBM contract workers at Virgin Media's Swansea site and 60 at its Albert Dock site became redundant.

More recently, approximately 200 "Face-to-Face" sales staff (who procure customers in shopping centres/events) have also received notices of redundancy.

On 3 July 2008, staff in Swansea that support the DTV, telephone and Broadband frontline agents were notified of a potential loss of jobs.

On 11 November 2008 Virgin Media has said it plans to cut 2,200 jobs by 2012, about 15% of its workforce, as part of a group-wide overhaul.

Controversy

Leaked memo

A uniquely thorough open letter on LeakedMemo.com, from an inside source has argued that Virgin Media's Installation and fault service is far below a reasonable standard expectable by the general public, and that Virgin Media are aware of this but choose to not address it because it is not profitable enough for them to do so. The letter blames a lack of quality and frustration experienced by customers as a by product of Virgin Media contracting other companies (eg Avonline PLC) to provide a source of morally questionable cheap-labour - not unlike that of western companies utilising Sweatshops. The letter states that its UK based installation technicians are grossly underpaid, are forced into completing unsafe and illegal tasks, are consistently given workloads which are unattainable, and forced to lie to customers leaving the workers demoralised. This is considered serious by Avonline's Managing Director Mark Wynn, who has commented on the letter, but has done so without disagreeing with the allegations. The open letter has received many more comments from other Virgin Media Workers, most agreeing with the original content. The letter is addressed to Sir Richard Branson, but is yet to receive a rebuttal.

Net neutrality

In April 2008 Acting CEO Neil Berkett sparked controversy when he told Television, a magazine published by the Royal Television Society, “this net neutrality thing is a load of bollocks.” According to the journalist, he claimed that any video content provider that refused to pay Virgin Media a premium for faster access would have to get stuck in “bus lanes,” having their content delivered to end users at much slower speeds than that of paying content providers. There has been widespread criticism of this policy expressed on the Internet, large internet communities are requesting that Virgin customers end their subscription and initiate a mass boycott.

According to Virgin Media, the comments in the article were taken out of context and misinterpreted . A statement released by the company states: "With Virgin Media rolling out a 50Mb service later this year, we are uniquely equipped to cope with the demand for new bandwidth-hungry services. We strongly support the principle that the internet should remain a space that is open to all and we have not called for content providers to pay for distribution. However we recognise that as more customers turn to the web for content, different providers will have different needs and priorities and in the long term, it's legitimate to question how this demand will be managed. We welcome an informed debate on this issue."

Data pimping

Main article: Data pimping

In early 2008 it was announced that the ISP arm of Virgin Media had entered into a contract (along with BT and Talk Talk) with the former spyware company Phorm (responsible under their 121Media guise for the Apropos rootkit) to intercept and analyse their users' click-stream data, and sell the anonymised aggregate information as part of Phorm's OIX advertising service. The practice, which has become known as "data pimping", came under intense fire from various internet communities and other interested-parties who believe that the interception of data is illegal under UK law (RIPA). At a more fundamental level, many have argued that the ISPs and Phorm have no right to sell a commodity (a user's data) to which they have no claim of ownership. In response to questions about Phorm and the interception of data by the Webwise system Sir Tim Berners-Lee is quoted as saying:

"It's mine - you can't have it. If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me." - Sir Tim Berners-Lee: 2008

Though Phorm initially claimed that Virgin Media had signed an exclusive contract and were committed to implementing Phorm's Webwise tracking system, Virgin Media have since distanced themselves from this and now state that they have only signed a preliminary contract with Phorm to better understand the tracking technology, and are under no obligation to implement it. Reports on the Guardian website in May 2008 suggest that Virgin Media may be further distancing themselves from the controversial system.

External links

• Virgin Media (digital TV, broadband, phone and mobile)
• ntl:Telewest Business