Virgin TV is a cable television service in the UK, owned by Virgin Media. Its origins come back from NTL and Telewest, two largest cable operators in the country, of which the two companies merged on 6 March 2006. All services (thus including TV) were rebranded as the Virgin name.
Currently[update] Virgin TV ranks as the UK's second largest pay TV service, having 3.6m subscribers, compared to BSkyB's 8.2m on Sky, as of Q3 2007.[1]
Virgin's digital cable television currently uses the Nagravision 3 conditional access system.[2][3]
Currently[update] 55% of UK households potentially have access to Virgin's network,[4] while anyone in the UK with a line-of-sight view of the Astra & Eurobird satellites at 28.2° east has the ability to receive Sky's service.
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As of 2008, Virgin Media functioned as a single company; however, it relied on its three existing infrastructures: the Langley-based NTL, Bromley-based Cable and Wireless and Knowsley-based Telewest platforms. As part of the Next Generation Television network, the infrastructure was consolidated into a single super headend at Langley in 2010, with Knowsley serving as a backup.
In May 2008, Virgin Media began their "long term" region-by-region analogue television service switch off project, beginning with Coventry and Glasgow.[5][6] In areas where analogue transmission will be turned off but no digital replacement introduced customers will be offered Virgin's off-network services, with the company looking at developing a television-over-DSL service for areas outside its cable network. Analogue subscribers in areas where digital cable services are already available will be offered transfers to new packages. The firm signaled that it wants to use the capacity to provide faster broadband internet.
On 11 September 2009, Cisco Systems announced a deal to support Virgin Media's Internet Protocol TV distribution platform and upgrade its legacy digital TV infrastructure. Virgin Media deployed Cisco Digital Video Headend technology in all of its regional and central headends, across its national fibre optic network. The TV platform will be capable of delivering advanced services to more than 12.6 million UK homes. The infrastructure helped Virgin Media to reduce operating expenses, support the rollout of new conditional-access security services, and accelerate the introduction of new standard and high-definition services.[7] A Virgin Media spokesman later clarified that the plan "isn't quite announcing the 'launch of IPTV services'. The agreement with Cisco is to help enhance our existing TV platform, which broadcasts content over DVB-C and then our VoD service runs on IP."[8]
On 24 November 2009, Virgin Media entered into a strategic partnership with TiVo.[9] Under the mutually exclusive agreement, TiVo developed a converged television and broadband interactive interface to power Virgin Media's next generation, high definition set-top boxes. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. TiVo became the exclusive provider of middleware and user interface software for Virgin Media's next generation set top boxes. Virgin Media became the exclusive distributor of TiVo services and technology in the United Kingdom.
Virgin Media will pay TiVo monthly fees, which commenced upon delivery of its first set-top box, which are guaranteed and increase over time.[10] The agreement has a multi-year term with additional limited renewal rights granted to Virgin. The agreement created a mutually exclusive distribution arrangement under which TiVo will develop software for DVR set top box platforms and non-DVR set-top boxes that will be deployed in the future by Virgin in the United Kingdom. Virgin Media will promote the product and has exclusive rights to use the TiVo brand and technology in the United Kingdom. As part of the agreement, Virgin Media and TiVo entered into a mutual covenant not to assert with regards to each party’s intellectual property. Investment bank Lazard Capital Markets estimated the hookup as a “$48 million deal” for TiVo. Virgin Media is to maintain its current Liberate middleware provided by SeaChange International through until at least January 2011.[11]
In a few areas Virgin Media has still[update] not upgraded its network to offer digital television and broadband. In these areas Virgin Media only offers customers analogue cable television. During 2009 digital upgrade work began in Bolton, Slough and West London as well as parts of Leicester, Northern Ireland and Southampton, with most areas completed between 2010 and 2011.
The BT Group owned (but Virgin Media leased) Milton Keynes and Westminster franchises remain analogue-only.[5] BT's Openreach division has selected Milton Keynes for a large scale fibre-to-the-premises trial (as opposed to fibre-to-the-cabinet in other parts of the UK). It remains to be seen what impact, if any, this will have on the viability of the Virgin Media leasing arrangement of the analogue HFC network there, which, uniquely, is believed to pass through BT infrastructure - not wholly VM's. The leasing arrangement dates back to 1999 and was mandated by the European Union in response to competition concerns surrounding BT's Cable TV interests in Milton Keynes and Westminster.[12] Virgin Media will completely withdraw its services in Westminster from January 2012, after being unable to upgrade the network and deliver their digital services at a reasonable cost.[13] The Milton Keynes cable network, which has a significant number of users due to technical satellite and aerial reception issues down to local geography,[14] does not suffer the same 'conservation' area rules as the Borough of Westminster, and thus, has been spared for now.
For customers in non-cabled areas, Virgin Media offered a branded set-top box for the Freeview digital terrestrial television service, called "Free TV", until December 2009 when it was discontinued.[15] The set-top box was free to any customer taking the Bundle One subscription package or for an addition fee to other customers, up to five additional set-top boxes were available per account.
The next phase of this service was to be a combined IPTV and digital terrestrial television service similar to BT Vision and TalkTalk TV. Virgin Media signed an agreement with Cable & Wireless to become the unbundled local loop (LLU) network provider, providing access to 4 million homes outside of the Virgin Media cable franchise network and would include linear pay broadcast channels and video on demand. This was originally scheduled to be released during 2008 but was delayed and scaled back as Virgin Media concentrated on improving its cable broadband proposition instead of focusing on competing with Sky in the premium television market.[16][17][18] As of 2010, no further developments have been announced and the plans appear to have been abandoned.
Virgin TV carries around 300 digital television and radio channels, including a mixture of subscription, premium subscription and pay-per-view channels.
Virgin Media (when branded as Telewest) became the first UK broadcaster to offer HDTV, launching its service several months earlier than that of its chief competitor, Sky.[19] An HD-enabled set-top box is required to view HDTV.
Virgin TV branded its original high-definition (HD) Digital Video Recorder (PVR) service as V+. The service uses a PVR set-top box, with three tuners and a 160 GB hard disk for up to 80 hours' recording. The presence of three tuners means that V+ can record two channels at the same time while viewers watch a third. This contrasts with most other PVR systems such as Sky+, which supports only two tuners. In December 2010 a 1 TB TiVo HD PVR from Cisco was released,[20] with a 500 GB model released in May 2011.[21] From late 2011, Samsung Electronics will join Cisco as a second supplier of TiVo STBs for Virgin Media.[22]
Virgin also offer a Cisco V HD Box, for a fixed upgrade fee from their standard set-top box with no additional monthly subscription fee.[23]
Virgin TV ranks as the UK's largest provider of on-demand content, with over 3 million video on demand (VoD) customers and as of October 2011[update] over 6,500 hours of programming.[24]
The company currently[update] brands its VOD service as "On Demand". In contrast to the Sky Anytime system from Sky, Virgin Media offers a "true" VOD system, allowing customers to stream programmes whenever they want to watch them from servers at the customer's local head end. As the broadcaster automatically stores content on Virgin Media servers, this removes the need to pre-record many programmes. Users can search through a large library of programmes (called "TV Choice") from content providers including the BBC, ITV,[25] Channel 4, Channel Five, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Discovery Networks, National Geographic, CBS Paramount, Buena Vista, Alliance Atlantis, Warner Bros., Viacom (MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon), Current TV, BabyTV, PictureBox Movies, NBC Universal and BSkyB; and watch them when they want to. Subscribers to Virgin Media's premier television package, Size: XL, have the content included in their subscription, while other customers can pay £5 per month for unlimited access, or can utilise pay-per-view. In addition, Virgin Media offers a "Catch-up" service, which includes a free 7-day "watch-again" feature for selected television programmes broadcast by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. The service also offers over 500 films (service-branded "FilmFlex"), and more than 8000 music-videos. On 12 July 2007 the music videos became free for all XL customers.[26]
Additionally, it was revealed that as of 2008[update] one third of BBC television programmes viewed on its iPlayer service are accessed through Virgin Media's On Demand service and that 50% of all Virgin Media customers "regularly" use On Demand services.[27]
On 25 November 2009, Virgin Media added dynamic advertising using SeaChange International’s AdPulse system.[28] Ads will appear in thirty second pre-roll and post-roll ads which will be matched to the programme being watched.
In January 2010, Virgin Media launched Virgin Media Music, offering over 3,500 videos to watch completely free.[29] Virgin Media confirmed it would be launching a rival to both the BBC iPlayer and Sky Player by the end of 2010, with subscribers accessing content both online and through their mobile devices.[30]
On 26 April 2010, Virgin Media announced the launch of its first online movies service: Virgin Media Online Movies.[31] All rentals will offer unlimited streamed views for 48 hours so viewers can pause, rewind and watch again, plus the film can be watched wherever the account holder logs on. Virgin Media Online Movies is powered by FilmFlex Movies Ltd., the service is delivered over the web using Microsoft Silverlight and will initially present movies in standard definition.[32] A HD version of the service is in testing, though there is no word on when it might become available.
On 29 July 2010, Virgin Media announced the beta launch of Virgin Media Player, an online and mobile TV player. Hundreds of hours of content for the beta trial were made available from ITV plc, Living, Disney, Cartoon Network, National Geographic, Discovery and MTV Networks Europe.[33] The beta trial is open to Virgin Media’s XL TV customers who also have a broadband connection with the company. Virgin Media brought more content to Virgin Media Player as the company built towards full launch later in the year. Virgin Mobile pay monthly customers are able to access an hour of Virgin Media Player every day, at no extra charge. Virgin Media Player on mobile launched with 4oD content which was joined by MTV Snax, MTV Music, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central.
A full launch for Virgin Media Player happened in late October 2010 on both computers and mobiles, with the latter charging additional fees for each hour or part hour of access on an escalating price scale, and availability initially only over 3G not Wi-Fi.[34] A facility allowing customers to watch a programme on one device, pause it and then continue viewing from exactly the same point via another device expected to be added in mid-2011.[35]
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