VM Review in 'The Guardian'

[spankysmagicpian]

Looks like no one has posted this yet. Apologies if they have..

Virgin Media to woo Freeview customers with faster broadband


Richard Wray, communications editor
Monday October 22, 2007
The Guardian

Virgin Media has admitted that it cannot compete with BSkyB in premium pay-TV and is instead planning to attract customers with updated broadband services.

Acting chief executive Neil Berkett, widely tipped to retain the top job, hopes to take advantage of the faster speeds possible over the cable network to differentiate the business from rivals such as Sky and Carphone Warehouse.

He wants to move the focus away from TV and onto more mass-market households who do not need Sky's sports and movie channels but do want more than basic Freeview digital TV. Virgin Media reckons these households can be tempted with services such as video on demand that require fast broadband.

"Despite our technical advantage we are still not really standing out from the crowd," admitted Mr Berkett. "I really do want to re-focus our energies onto the broadband platform."

Virgin Media saw about 40,000 subscribers defect when Sky pulled its basic channels from the service in the spring but since then people have left blaming poor service. The company has finally consolidated all its legacy billing systems, which should fix some of these issues.

Mr Berkett believes rivals such as TalkTalk from Carphone Warehouse have turned basic broadband access into a commodity and "there is a rebalancing to be done" in the industry.

Virgin Media is testing broadband speeds of up to 50 megabits per second - or twice the fastest speed possible over the BT lines that the rest of the industry relies upon. But as yet there are few services which need such fast speeds, which is why Virgin will be launching some of its own next year, such as high-definition video on demand, household applications including home surveillance and possibly on-line video gaming.

The company has already launched video on demand, which has been used by almost half its over 3 million digital TV customers, and is working with the BBC to make its iPlayer video-on-demand platform accessible directly through the Virgin Media cable platform making BBC shows easy and fast to download.

Virgin Media has hired an executive search firm to replace chief executive Steve Burch but the plain-speaking and pragmatic New Zealand-born Mr Berkett is increasingly seen as the obvious candidate for the job. Mr Berkett is in no doubt that the most important task facing Virgin Media is to stop its customers defecting to rival providers.

Ofcom is investigating the pay-TV market, after submissions from Virgin, BT and the digital pay-TV operators Setanta and Top-Up TV, with a view to a possible Competition Commission inquiry. While the regulator decides what to do about the might of Sky, Virgin Media is hoping to attract those dipping their toes into digital TV through the Freeview service.

"Think of Freeview as a nursery and you have millions of kindergarten kids who once they have got the taste for multi-channel TV may upgrade an element of the service."

[Rita Malone]

I thought as much. I wonder how fast their new broadband service would be?

[slowcoach]

Looks like people are leaving in droves and VM has at last had a wake-up call, just hope they don't just continue BS'ing new and old customers instead of spending some money where it's needed.

[gadge]

Wouldnt say leaving in droves.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by slowcoach

Looks like people are leaving in droves

How do you work that out ?

[Mick Fisher]

Originally Posted by The Guardian

He wants to move the focus away from TV and onto more mass-market households who do not need Sky's sports and movie channels but do want more than basic Freeview digital TV. Virgin Media reckons these households can be tempted with services such as video on demand that require fast broadband.

A good idea to "move the focus away" from things VM are crap at and concentrate on what they are good at, BB.
Erm..stable doors and horses bolting comes immediately to mind. Currently struggling to reach 4meg on my 20meg VM narrow band.

[tvtimes]

Originally Posted by slowcoach

Looks like people are leaving in droves and VM has at last had a wake-up call, just hope they don't just continue BS'ing new and old customers instead of spending some money where it's needed.

Leaving in droves?

Quite the opposite actually. UK Cable is currently enjoying one of it's biggest uptakes in it's history, if not its biggest. Ofcom recently reported that cable was growing at a very fast rate.

Before the sky withdrawal VM were attracting thousands of customer's to both it's tv service and BB with telco seeing a decline. Even with sky's withdrawal VM may have lost 40,000 customer's last quarter but they attracted 43,000 new customer's to tv and 53,000 to Broadband!! So all in all they were up 3 thousand customer's on their tv subscriptions so imagine how many more they would have had without the sky withdrawal. At least those customer's got cancelled out with the new customer's.

I am looking forward to this quarter indeed! My mate in sales told me the company signed 14,000 tv customer's in one day this quarter.

[Mick Fisher]

Erm ..is that why VM was up for sale (or ripe for a takeover, however you want to phrase it) just before the financial sector went pear shaped.

[Hugh]

Originally Posted by Mick Fisher

Erm ..is that why VM was up for sale (or ripe for a takeover, however you want to phrase it) just before the financial sector went pear shaped.

Don't remember ABN Ambro having any problems before the battle between Barclays and RBS, or Boots being in difficulties before they were approached/bought out by KKR

[Arthurgray50@blu]

VM have only got one problem, and it is a big problem, and that is they are always feeling sorry for themself, by declaring that Sky is better, but what they should be doing is giving us, the CUSTOMER, a better service than what we are getting now, my BB is is the top, is absolute crap, l could make a cup of tea quicker than BB on VM. they are NOT telling us what is happening, they are always saying we are getting new channels, and we have to wait months for it, VM can be a big rival to Sky, but they have a long way to go.

[Rita Malone]

Originally Posted by gadge

Wouldnt say leaving in droves.

I would of said, everyone was making an exodus.

[tvtimes]

Originally Posted by Mick Fisher

Erm ..is that why VM was up for sale (or ripe for a takeover, however you want to phrase it) just before the financial sector went pear shaped.

So? loads of people were interested in buying it because it is a good investment and cable is in the strongest position it has ever been and the shareholders wanted to cash in.

They put it for sale to either cash in or because it knocked severley for it's argument with Sky.

You cannot argue with the figures i'm afraid. They are not leaving in droves and cable has a bright future.

---------- Post added at 18:31 ---------- Previous post was at 18:30 ----------

Originally Posted by Rita Malone

I would of said, everyone was making an exodus.

Or a mountain out of a mole hill

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

So? loads of people were interested in buying it because it is a good investment and cable is in the strongest position it has ever been and the shareholders wanted to cash in.

They put it for sale to either cash in or because it knocked severley for it's argument with Sky.

You cannot argue with the figures i'm afraid. They are not leaving in droves and cable has a bright future.

---------- Post added at 18:31 ---------- Previous post was at 18:30 ----------



Or a mountain out of a mole hill

You appear to be reading different figures from others.

The Q2 2007 ofcom report cites the following:

Drivers of DTV growth

2.6 Since 2005, satellite and DTT have been the main drivers of DTV growth. In Q2 2007:
• DTT accounted for 84% of net digital additions with 763,000 homes added;
• satellite added 137,000 homes or 15% of all additions; and
• Cable added 6,600 homes, just under 1% of all additions, and a smaller rise than in the previous three quarters. (Figure 5).

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Mick Fisher

Erm ..is that why VM was up for sale (or ripe for a takeover, however you want to phrase it) just before the financial sector went pear shaped.

Yes, because it was seen by the private equity firms as a nice little earner, good customer base, well established network, and a good portfolio of services both residential and business.

Leaving in droves, or as someone put it, exodus is hardly in keeping with the companies financial results.

The article is candid, with an acting CEO admiting one part of its business is not attracting as many customers as it likes, and recognising that its core business, broadband, will set it apart from its competition.

[mertle]

what I cant understand is the viral rubbish that is spouted about how superior SKY is. If you have SKY plus and HD the quality probably there but its still not as good as V+ many independent reviewing magazines have said so. How can you campare a old PACE box with new sky boxeshow is that a fair comparison.

I have a sister on SKY with just a normal box from sky and I will tell you this the MPEG quality is just the same as VM with all channels and the same pasted look and black levels poor is on the premium channels like the movies. Thats the reality and normal sky service which is comparision to standard VM has no difference in quality.

VM makes this more aware people will see it for themselves. Infact another feature should be pushed out how much cheaper VM is and sky multiroom feature. Which is truly a cash cow rip off if your on SKY.

How much would it cost SKY owners to have to 3 seperate rooms all watch different SKY channels.

VM need just market the benefits over SKY and show quality is the same. Sky superior quality is viral myth.