Virgin Media 2009 Annual Report Download - page 13

Our DTV service includes access to over 160 linear television channels, advanced interactive
features, and a range of premium subscription-based and pay-per-view services. From June 2009, our
subscription-based premium television services have been provided by our Luxembourg subsidiary,
Future Entertainment Sarl, trading as Virgin Media Entertainment. We offer a free-to-air digital
television service, or Free TV, to certain customers on our cable platform. Our Free TV service
provides access to approximately 45 linear channels and radio services such as Virgin1, Five US, Five,
E4 and Yesterday. In addition to our linear television services, which allow our customers to view
television programming at a scheduled time, our DTV and Free TV customers also have access to
certain digital interactive services, including one of the most comprehensive video-on-demand, or VOD,
services in the U.K. See ‘‘Virgin TV On Demand’’ below. We also provide ATV services to customers
in limited geographic areas.
Our cable network enables us to deliver a broad range of digital interactive services, including
games, news, entertainment and information services, from an on-screen menu. We also offer
interactive ‘‘red button’’ applications from the BBC and other commercial broadcasters. ‘‘Red button’’
functionality in the U.K. permits television viewers to press a red button on their remote control
handset to receive additional interactive services, including multiple broadcasts. For example, in a
Wimbledon tennis broadcast, a customer can press the red button and choose which match to watch.
Virgin TV On Demand
Our VOD service, Virgin TV On Demand, provides our customers with instant access to a wide
selection of premium movies, television programs and series, music videos and other on-demand
content. The service offers features such as freeze-frame, fast-forward and rewind, which allow our
customers increased control over the content and timing of their television viewing. Additionally, our
cable network enables us to provide VOD content to our customers with no concurrent degradation of
their broadband speed. As of December 31, 2009, we had over 4,500 hours of on-demand content. In
2009, our VOD usage increased to 74 million average monthly views in the fourth quarter, up from
55 million average monthly views in the first quarter. We believe that customers who use our VOD
service are less likely to churn.
The primary types of content available within Virgin TV On Demand are TV programming,
movies and music videos. A selection of content is available free of charge to all of our DTV
customers. This is primarily focused within our ‘catch-up’ TV service which offers approximately
480 hours of popular broadcast TV shows. We also offer BBC iPlayer as part of our on-demand
service, which enables viewers to catch-up on over 350 hours of BBC programs. In 2009, we expanded
our VOD offering with content from ITV plc, or ITV, one of the largest commercial broadcasters in
the U.K., including the addition of up to 80 hours of catch-up TV per week.
We offer our DTV customers a subscription VOD, or SVOD, package, including up to 2,300
episodes of premium TV programming and over 3,000 music videos. Our SVOD package is provided
free of charge to subscribers to our top tier TV package and is available for an additional monthly fee
to our other DTV customers. In 2009, we expanded our SVOD offering with the launch of
‘PictureBox,’ a subscription movie-on-demand service, offering premium movie content in both standard
and high definition format, and the addition of over 250 hours of TV programming from ITV. All of
our DTV customers also have access to pay-per-transaction content, including approximately
500 movies and our entire library of music videos. Pay-per-transaction movies and music are available
for 24 hours after purchase and may be accessed multiple times during that period for a single fixed
charge.
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