Broadband News

Virgin Media offers ITV catch-ups

Friday, 09 January 2009

Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

Cable provider Virgin Media has teamed up with ITV to offer free on-demand catch-ups to its digital TV customers.

Virgin Media's (www.VirginMedia.com) 3.5 million customers will be able to view more than 40 hours of programmes from ITV 1, 2, 3 and 4, with shows such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale being made available for seven days after broadcast.

Over 500 hours of ITV comedies, documentaries and dramas, including a selection of ITV’s HD programming, will also be available to watch at any time on demand.

Virgin Media customers will also be able to watch ITV content online.

Virgin Media already offers the BBC iPlayer direct to customer’s televisions, as well as a selection of content from Virgin Media’s other channels. Total views of all on demand programmes exceeded 357 million by the end of the first nine months of 2008 and averaged 45 million views each month in the third quarter of last year.

Malcolm Wall, CEO of content at Virgin Media, said: “ITV makes some of the country’s most loved TV programmes so we’re delighted to be able to offer so many of them to our customers. We already have the largest and best collection of entertainment available on-demand and adding this vast amount of quality content will make our TV offering even more compelling.”

Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “We are encouraged to see that the deal encompasses Virgin’s online - as well as digital TV - customers since this provides additional utility for their broadband subscribers.

“Virgin’s high speed cable network certainly has the potential to allow broadband users to get the most out of this kind of online service.”

However, he added that “on demand content of this kind can really test a consumer’s broadband package in terms of speed and download limits due to the size of the programme files.

It’s important that all UK broadband customers know they could have a download limit, fair usage policy or traffic management system* with their package. Therefore we would recommend using our free Broadband Download Monitor to track downloads and alert them about their traffic usage.”

“It’s important that customers know what their monthly download limit is so we would recommend using our free Broadband Download Monitor to track downloads and alert them as they reach their limit,” concluded Phillips.

* Virgin Media offers unlimited download limits, a traffic management policy may be enforced during peak times of day.

Related article - Top tips for downloading.

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