BT Vision seeks better quality customers

BT Vision says it is seeking an improvement in the quality of its customer base after suffering another miserable quarter.

Just 18,000 new subscribers were added to the IPTV operation in the third quarter, but after a further cleanse of its database the total as of September 30, 2009 stood at 436,000, just 3,000 more than at the end of June. BT Vision has blamed the slow progress on seasonal factors. Sky and Virgin Media have also recently conducted data cleansing exercises, though both ended the third quarter with significantly higher figures.

Last month, BT Vision chief executive Marc Watson admitted it would miss the 2-3 million target set by group chief executive Ian Livingston for December 2010.

Having originally positioned the product away from the need for customers to be tied to subscriptions, the operator says 90% of new customers signing up in the quarter took out a subscription package.

The total number of views to on demand content during the quarter was 34 million, an increase of 14% on the first quarter, representing an average of 35 views per customer per month.

Subscriber Gains Q3 2009

BT Vision: 3,000
Sky: 124,000
Virgin: 56,000

Source: Company data