There's been quite a lot of Virgin Media-related news this week, so I've compiled it all here for fellow subscribers:
1. As VM subscribers may already have noticed, HD content from BBC's iPlayer is now available to be streamed via Virgin Media's catch-up service. You do need a Virgin+ box to decrypt the HD content, obviously.
2. ITV launched on Virgin's catch-up service a month ago, helping Virgin to a record-breaking 58 million views of its on-demand content. The previous record was 56 million, set back in December '08. The most popular ITV shows have been Coronation Street, Emmerdale and, er, The Jeremy Kyle Show!
3. Virgin plan to make 5 additional HD linear channels available to their subscribers later this summer, with more HD also available on-demand. Expect a big marketing push of Virgin+ around that time. Right now, only 611,900 customers (17% of its TV subscribers) own a Virgin+ box, which can currently only receive BBC HD and stream a small selection of HD movies on-demand. Virgin clearly want to start making in-roads to the HD market, before Sky completely monopolize the market with their Sky+HD boxes and extensive suite of high-def channels.
