Popular shows including Glee, Shameless, Skins, EastEnders and Coronation Street have delivered Virgin Media with 200 million views of on demand content in the first three months of 2010.
The cablenet says that 2.1 million Virgin Media homes are now regularly using catch-up content drawn from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Virgin 1 and Living.
However, free catch-up content dwarfs the pay-per-view elements of on demand. 2.6 million movies, a fraction of the on demand offer, were watched in Q1. Even then the figures include the romantic comedy Head Over Heels that was offered free to customers.
Channel 4’s on demand service, 4oD, enjoyed a record-breaking three months with nearly 19 million views of catch up content during Q1 2010. This culminated in nearly eight million views in March alone on the back of shows including Glee, Shameless and Skins.
Meanwhile the BBC iPlayer continues to deliver with over 50 million views in Q1 2010. This included a quarter of a million Virgin Media customers tuning in for a second chance to view the live episode of EastEnders.
