Digital TV News

Virgin Media TiVo gets a billion on-demand views

Wednesday 8 February, 2012

By Anthony Hill

TiVo customers doubled to 435,000 in final three months of last year.

Virgin Media has revealed that its customers watched even more TV than expected in 2011. In the past 12 months, programmes have been viewed on TiVo more than a billion times.

The digital recording and on-demand platform gained 273,000 new subscribers between September and December, doubling the total number of TiVo customers to 435,000 by the end of the year.

Cindy Rose, executive director of digital entertainment at Virgin Media, said: "Essentially, people are watching more TV - whether that’s on-demand, suggestions recorded for them, or as a result of new and exciting interactive experiences .

"We know on-demand is incredibly popular, as it’s watched more than any channel except for BBC One or ITV1, but we far surpassed our expectations in 2011."

In fact, Virgin Media customers used their TiVo boxes to watch programmes when they want a total of 1,004,447,198 times last year. That's approximately 490 million hours of combined viewing - it would take one person 56,000 years to watch this much TV back to back.

During 2011, the TiVo service was made available to new Virgin Media subscribers for the very first time. It seamlessly combines the live television schedule with on-demand content and interactive elements via the web.

The revolutionary platform - which is similar to the Sky+ service offered to Sky customers - features a clever recommendations system which learns to predict and suggest TV shows that a household is likely to enjoy.

Rose added: "The TV world is changing, with TiVo’s powerful functionality and ease of use giving people even more control over what they watch and when.

"Over half our customers say they’re recommending the service to their friends and family. Together with the UK’s fastest widely available broadband, Virgin Media is putting the power of the digital world in the hands of our customers."