Virgin Media

Virgin Media, the UK’s leading entertainment and communications company, confirms its customers watched more TV On Demand than expected in 2011 as the advent of Virgin Media’s TiVo Service accelerates dramatic changes in how people are watching television.

One year ago Virgin Media predicted its customers’ growing love for TV On Demand would drive a significant increase in the number of programmes watched at a time that suits them. The company anticipated total On Demand views for the year would exceed one billion. The final total was 1,004,447,198, an overall increase of 14% on 2010.

Virgin Media TV customers sat down to watch On Demand for a combined total of approximately 490 million hours. If a single person wanted to watch this much television back-to-back, it would take more than 56,000 years. ITV’s Coronation Street was the most watched catch-up show, while The Vampire Diaries was the most popular complete series. With people still spending as much time watching linear broadcast TV as they did the year before¹, the growth in On Demand viewing is answering the question of ‘What’s on?�� with ‘Whatever you want.’

During 2011 Virgin Media also made its revolutionary TiVo Service available to new subscribers for the first time. As the UK’s first next generation entertainment platform, it seamlessly combines the live TV schedule with On Demand, as well as the best of the web. This allows Virgin Media to add even more via a dedicated internet connection that delivers further programming and powers interactive apps which can build engagement and consumer excitement around films such as Harry Potter and shows like True Blood.

Research from 2011 confirms TiVo’s power to help customers personalise, control and find what they want as well. 88% of customer searches were for programmes outside BARB’s top 50, with TiVo enabling people to easily navigate the growing number of channels and On Demand content, not just those at the top of a TV guide. This is enriching the entertainment experience for households across the country as well as bringing new and niche content to the awareness of wider audiences.

The game changing service features a highly intelligent recommendations engine which learns to predict and suggest shows that a household will like. With either a 500GB or a market-leading 1TB of recording capacity available, the average number of recordings stored per box is ninety, spilt equally between those set up by the customer and those saved and recommended by TiVo. Within three months, TiVo users are typically looking at these recordings more than they do the traditional TV guide². Customers are also using the iconic TiVo thumbs to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ shows eight million times a month on average.

Cindy Rose, executive director of digital entertainment at Virgin Media said: “Essentially people are watching more TV; whether that’s On Demand, suggestions recorded for them, or as a result of new and exciting interactive experiences. We know On Demand is incredibly popular as it’s watched more than any channel except for BBC1 or ITV1 but we far surpassed our expectations in 2011. We’ve led the development of On Demand and we’re now doing the same with TiVo, which takes the entertainment experience to another level.

“The TV world is changing, with TiVo’s powerful functionality and ease of use giving people even more control over what they watch and when. The advocacy we’re seeing from users is vociferous with over half telling us they’re recommending the service to their friends and family. Together with the UK’s fastest widely available broadband, Virgin Media is putting the power of the digital world in the hands of our customers.”