TiVo and broadband led the way in the third quarter as revenues at Virgin Media increased by 2.2% to reach £1 billion (€1.15 billion). But the cablenet also saw a fall in its TV customers and there was also a reduction in mobile and non-cable revenue.
The TiVo hybrid set-top added 127,000 customers in the quarter, a third of which were new customers, to reach 222,000 customers at October 26. There was also record growth in customers taking broadband speeds of 30 Mb or higher. Over one million households are now on speeds of 20 MB or higher, representing 26% of the cable broadband base.
Later this year a companion app for TiVo will play on the increasing use of tablet devices. The app will replicate the graphical interface and functionality of the service while enabling customers to browse, search and control their TV through their tablet.
There was continued growth on cable ARPU, which was up 3.2% to reach a record £47.86.
“Over a quarter of our entire base now subscribe to speeds of 20Mb or higher and a record number of customers joined us on superfast broadband speeds during the period with. In TV, we have quadrupled the number of households using our game-changing TiVo service and customer advocacy for this product is very strong,” commented CEO Neil Berkett.
Although the cable customer base grew by 6,400 during the quarter, there was losses on TV. The number of paying TV customers actually increased by 28,800; however churn in the lowest free “M” tier, with 34,500 net disconnections, meant the total TV customer base fell by 5,700 in the quarter. The M tier closely mirrors the Freeview DTT package.
Generally speaking it is the lower value customers that represent those churning, the percentage leaving up slightly at 1.7%, compared to 1.6% in the second quarter last year.
Around two-thirds of the TV base regularly used on- demand TV service during the quarter, averaging 80m views each month, an increase of 10% from the same period in 2010.
Out of 3.8 million TV customers the number who subscribe to Sky premium channels increased by 7% to 775,100, which represents 21% of all TV customers.
