Virgin Media says most subs use VOD weekly

UK cable operator Virgin Media says that 62% of its subscribers now use its video-on-demand service at least once a week.

Cindy Rose, executive director of television, Virgin Media, gave a run-down of VOD usage at the RTS conference in London yesterday. She added that the iPlayer catch-up service, which is available over Virgin’s cable system, has driven usage as had interest in kids content, transactional services and scripted series. “The VOD service is now the fifth most popular ‘channel’ across our whole service,” Rose said. “Those customers that have PVRs say they cannot live without them and it is the same for those that use the VOD services, those demographics are very similar.”

Use of VOD services is proportionally much higher among Virgin subs than the wider public in the UK. Statistics revealed at the conference, based on data from audience ratings company Barb, revealed just 0.2% of UK viewing was to true video-on-demand services. The statistics also revealed that 6% of viewing is time-shifted and 0.8% is to a catch-up service.