Virgin Media Q4 and full year 2011 statement

The highlights:

• Revenue up 3.0% to £4.0bn for the year
• Revenue up 2.0% to £1.0bn for the quarter*
• Strong TiVo and superfast broadband growth 
• TiVo customer base more than doubled in Q4 with 273,000 net additions
• 435,000 TiVo customers at the year-end; 12% of the TV base
• 56,100 increase in the paying TV base for the quarter
• Strong demand for superfast broadband (30Mb and above) in Q4 with 133,000 customer growth
• Net cable customer additions of 15,000 in Q4
• Cable ARPU, up 0.7% to £47.85 versus a strong comparison quarter

Neil Berkett, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Media, said: 'In a fast-changing industry and an uncertain economic environment, our 2011 results demonstrate the underlying resilience of Virgin Media's business model, with modest revenue growth driving robust OCF and record free cash flow. Our strategy of focusing on customers who want more from the digital world is paying off. With the number of TiVo customers doubling in the final quarter of the year, our new TiVo service is attracting both new and existing customers. Since its commercial launch mid-way through the year, the number of TiVo subscribers has grown to almost half a million with a large and growing proportion now using its next generation functionality on a regular basis. Demand for better broadband also continues to grow fast, with around half of new customers choosing superfast speeds. The combination of the best TV experience and the best broadband, has enabled us to acquire more new customers in the quarter. Our confidence in the growing mainstream demand for next generation digital services has recently led us to announce the roll-out of an ambitious programme to double the broadband speeds of over four million customers. This marks a step change in the migration to superfast speeds and, combined with the continued evolution of TiVo, further differentiates the Virgin Media customer experience. We are also making strong progress in other areas. We are successfully building contract mobile sales into cable homes and Virgin Media Business ended the year strongly as an increasingly important and growing contributor to the group.'
MediaGuardian comment: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/08/virgin-media-posts-first-ever-profit.
Telegraph comment: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/9068488/Virgin-Media-deliver-first-annual-profits.html
BBC News comment:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16941543
Sky News comment:
...er, can't find it on the Sky News site. But it is really, really cold apparently...

In summary:  a better-than-anticipated set of results, resulting in a profit for the first time in the UK cable industry.

Virgin results and strategy update tomorrow (Feb 8)

Here's what analysts are expecting: "The TV and telecoms group could add 13,000 customers in its fourth quarter, according to JP Morgan Cazenove, bringing its total subscribers to 4.8m. The total, which takes into account those leaving the network, could include 30,000 more broadband subscribers." source: MediaGuardian. I've not heard of any new TV service announcements planned for tomorrow but it will be interesting to see how many have converted to TiVo in total now that the service is fully established.

Virgin announces Q2 2008 results

Virgin Media this morning has posted its second quarter's results. Churn is down again, overall TV subs are up by 24,800 (in what is normally the weakest quarter for pay TV) but ARPU (the revenue per customer, not the guy who runs the Kwik-E-Mart) is down. The full press release can be found here, and here's the piece from the press release specific to TV services:

Total TV net additions were 24,800 in the quarter (Q1-08: 36,800; Q2-07: 2,200). Net additions were up compared to the same quarter last year which was negatively affected by BSkyB’s removal of its basic TV channels from our platform.
During the quarter, we launched the BBC’s iPlayer service on our VOD platform offering hundreds of hours of BBC “catch-up” content. Virgin Media is the first TV platform to make BBC iPlayer available in full screen picture quality directly to its 3.4m digital TV subscribers. Developments like this give VOD a new impetus and help establish on-demand as a genuinely mainstream TV service.
Customers are increasingly using our VOD services. On a monthly basis, 1.6m of our TV customers are now using VOD, representing a reach of 48%. Average views per user per month in the quarter were 24 compared to 14 a year ago. Average monthly views were 38m in the quarter, up 5% on the previous quarter and up 92% on the same quarter last year.
During the quarter, we added 60,700 V+ DVR subscribers to reach an installed base of 424,900. This represents a penetration level of just 13% of our digital subscribers and so the growth opportunity remains strong.

The last piece is perhaps the most interesting to readers of this blog; Virgin added almost twice as many customers to the world of HD this month than Sky, and now has an HD-capable 425k homes compared to Sky's 490k . But there ain't a single mention of HD services in the press release which means anyone hopeful of more channels in 2008 is heading for disappointment. What's more, the success of the VOD service will reinforce VM's belief that strategically it's onto a winner investing solely in On Demand services when it comes to TV, especially as the take up of Sky's HD premium package has slowed with just 33k new subscribers this quarter. Whilst I'm not convinced that there's sufficient demand for 50mb connectivity at home unless it's coupled with some fabulous new content stream that needs that speed, Berkett and co are unlikely to change their thinking based on these results or Sky's this quarter.
Go on Virgin, prove me wrong and give us at least C4HD before Christmas...

Virgin's response to the petition

Virgin has responded to the petition:

This is in response to your letter addressed to Neil Berkett, dated 30 June 2008. I was pleased to be able to speak with you today and am writing as promised.
Customers with a V+ box and a correctly set up HD TV can view the following high definition content:
BBC HD channel. A specific channel from the BBC broadcasting programmes in high definition; this can be found on channel 108 and available to all digital TV customers with a V+ box no matter what package they have.
On Demand. A range of high definition programmes and films can be fond in the Virgin Media on demand service. HD programmes in the TV Choice or Movies on demand will be clearly stated as being high definition, and may cost more than the standard definition programmes. HD programmes can also be found by selecting ‘more on demand’ and then ‘High Definition’.
In your note you comment that you are disappointed with the pool levels of HD content on our service. We are sorry that you feel this way. I would like to reassure you that we ware focusing on our HD services within the On Demand service, especially in the Movies genre and continue to look at the linear HD channels available. I have passed your comments on to the appropriate teams for consideration.
Whilst we are working hard on our broadband development to ensure that we continue to deliver a ‘Hero broadband’ service, we are committed to ongoing development on our TV services. We have recently improved our VoD Music and more recently our Bollywood/Asian VoD Services. In addition, we are the only TV provider able to off the BBC iPlayer service via the TV. We hope you are enjoying these services.
We always try to be open and upfront with our customers. As yours is by no means the first mention of dissatisfaction we have received concerning the HD content of our Digital TV services, we are taking this seriously and, as mentioned above, I have passed this on to the appropriate teams.
Sincerely,
Penny D Patchett
Chief Executive’s Office

Hmmm. Can't say I'm completely surprised to the response from Virgin to the petition for more HD services. That the letter actually fails to mention the petition itself (which was over 800 signatures when sent - it now numbers over 1,000) suggests that this is a standard response churned out for the seemingly many complaints about the lack of HD services they're receiving.
Any revelations? 'I would like to reassure you that we are focusing on our HD services within the On Demand service' would be more assuring if we saw that with the HD content growing, but it's a fraction of what it was six months ago. Movies? Two dozen movies that features a handful of titles you've heard of and a majority that you haven't is hardly a service to shout about. Sky has three HD movie channels regularly cycling content - Sky HD may be £10 a month, but you'd pay more than that with a movie a week from the Filmflex HD selection. And don't look at Sky Box Office's HD selection: it features all films you'd want to see in HD that FilmFlex (the superior service in every other aspect) only shows in SD.
So the only crumb of comfort is that last paragraph;

As yours is by no means the first mention of dissatisfaction we have received concerning the HD content of our Digital TV services, we are taking this seriously

Crumbs indeed; hardly a response likely to stop folk switching to Sky HD.
One of this blog's regular readers, Dazza124, has also received some feedback from Virgin when complaining about the lack of HD - at least Darren had a personally written response, rather than the 'another complaint about HD' standard one:

Neil Berkett passed me your e-mail. I hope that I can answer at least some of your issues:
On HD, there are three key areas where we want to add services for customers exactly like yourself. Firstly, we do want to add some of the broadest audience HD services (like BBC HD) that may also go onto Freesat. I cannot give you dates or individual channel names if/until those commercial agreements are signed. You will see from BBC HD availability that our platform works well today in delivering these.
Secondly, we do want to add more HD VOD content and organize this amongst all the other titles on the service so that you can find and select it more easily. Our infrastructure gives us essentially unlimited capacity to add as many titles as we can get on reasonable terms. Thirdly, IPTV is interesting as you benefit from having a potentially better broadband connection via cable than by phone line. Hence if iPlayer or any other similar content becomes available in true HD, the difference between Virgin and other options becomes much more noticeable. Obviously we are encouraging this, although we also recently put iPlayer (for example) on the TV platform as well so you should be getting better quality for that programming today, rather than wait for HD IPTV.
I do know that this isn't everything you wanted on the "Christmas list" below, but please be assured that we are working hard to evolve our service to take full advantage of your 1080p TV.
Thank you for your continued custom.
Best regards
Andrew Barron

Again, nothing revelatory and little comfort to those who invest monthly in Virgin Media's TV services at a premium. I love the bit 'add as many titles as we can get on reasonable terms' - not that Virgin are providing HD content on the cheap...
One small note of good news; I see the first six episodes of The Sopranos season two are now available in On Demand in HD. Catch 'em quick; they won't be around for long.

Petition letter - comments please!

I've drafted the following to accompany the petition when I send it to Virgin Media MD Neil Berkett next week. Any comments welcome.

Dear Mr Berkett
I am writing to you to make you aware of the strength of feeling in Virgin Media’s customer base regarding the lack of high definition services on your cable TV platform.
For the last eight months I have produced a website promoting Virgin’s high definition services. During this time the site (www.vmhd.blogspot.com) has had almost 50,000 visitors. To me, that’s a good indication that there’s a lot of interest in the availability of HD programming on cable TV in the UK.
Unfortunately, Virgin Media’s HD services do not satisfy that enthusiasm or level of interest from your customers. One part-time channel and a diminishing selection of On Demand programming (that appears in a chaotic, incomplete fashion) is extremely poor value for your premium customers. Filmflex HD movies come at a considerable additional cost.
To capture the opinions of this frustrated community I set up an online petition (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/VirginTVHD) calling for signatories to support a demand of Virgin Media that you increase and improve your high definition TV services. Even I did not expect such a sizable, rapid and vocal response. Please find attached the signatories collected in a single week of the petition – 615 in total.
I appreciate that Virgin Media believes that its broadband and On Demand services are its USP. I understand that infrastructure and technologies are undergoing significant upgrades at considerable cost. But surely you cannot ignore your highest paying TV customers who at the very least should have high definition services on a par with those already promised by Freesat and Freeview.
Like so many others, I have selected Virgin Media over Sky and BT for my TV, broadband and telephony services. Like other VIP customers I’m paying over £1,000 a year for services – that’s a premium rate for what should be a premium service. The current TV provision is very clearly not seen by your customers as of a premium standard, particularly with regards to the availability of high definition programmes which are so clearly the future of quality TV services. Unless something is done soon by the Virgin management I fear that there will be a migration to Sky by your highest paying customers that will dwarf the impact of the loss of the Sky basics in 2007.
I await with interest your response to the signatories on this petition.
Kind regards, etc etc

Virgin Media HD petition

Enough! Time for a call to arms!
I've created an online petition calling for Virgin Media to increase their high definition services (both channels and on demand programming). The petition will be sent to Neil Berkett's office at the end of the summer, so please spare a few seconds and sign up at

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/VirginTVHD

Virgin channels go widescreen on June 3rd

Virgin1, +1, Living, +1, Living 2, Trouble, Bravo and Challenge all go widescreen on Tuesday. Not all content will immediately be 16:9 as some is only available in 4:3.

Band of Bother

The sheer incompetence of Virgin Media's management of its On Demand content has reached a new level with its posting of the High Definition episodes of Band of Brothers in many regions over the last few months.
This brilliant landmark series is often repeated, but that does not excuse the way it's been handled by Virgin.
In HD, I have episodes 1 -10 ... except 6. I've never had 6. I had two episodes of 5 at one point, but still no 6. In the end, with the clock ticking ("9 days left" it cheerily pointed out yesterday) I'm going to have to watch 6 in SD and gorge myself on the last four episodes in a flurry of Bank Holiday weekend viewing - I've only had the last three episodes a few days and already they're going.
Video On Demand is a fabulous, fabulous opportunity for Virgin to offer a genuine alternative to Sky and Freeview/sat, but it has to sort out its content loading processes for the service to be trusted by its viewers. No-one likes getting into a TV series and then finding it unceremoniously dropped prematurely by the provider. It's happened before (Lost, Ghost Whisperer, Night Stalker...pretty much everything in HD come to think of it) and it will no doubt happen again.
It's incompetent, pathetic, and cheating the paying customer.

Virgin making room for faster broadband...and more HD?

Confirmation that Virgin Media is (finally) turning off the legacy analogue cable network is probably the best news VM has announced in many a moon. Full story here and further details here, both reports from Digital Spy.
Virgin Chief Executive Neil Berkett talked at some length to investors last week about the upgrade plans for the network and the imminent demise of the analogue network:

"Relatively modest investment in customer equipment and [headend] ports for channel bonding is required to do this and is included in our current capital expenditure guidance.
"Next year our 20Mbps and 50Mbps customers will move to the DOCSIS 3.0 platform. This will significantly improve the quality of service provided to all our customers, as the 2Mbps and 10Mbps customers will have more bandwidth specifically dedicated to them. This will help push real world delivery speeds as close as possible to the advertised headline speeds.
"We currently only use two 8Mhz channels to serve all our broadband customers. For DOCSIS 3.0 this will be tripled. Each additional channel will be freed up by switching off a single analogue channel.
"Clearly it will not be long before we are in a position to switch off analogue completely, and this will free up significant bandwidth for even higher broadband speeds. We could easily provide 100Mbps if we chose to do so. We have a huge broadband advantage over competing technologies for speed quality, reliability and cost."

So far, so good. Personally, I'm happy with 20Mbps of broadband (when I get it - not as reliable as it used to be but hopefully that will improve as part of the upgrade). But this ain't just about broadband as releasing the bandwidth of the old analogue network will open up opportunities for more TV services too...including high definition linear channels and more on demand content. C4 HD? ITV HD? Sky basics in HD? If bandwidth's not an issue we could well see the former at least soon (even if Sky is a bit of a pipedream still).
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Berkett's recent presentation on the Q1 results doesn't make a single mention of current high definition services, let alone future ones. It's a big gap - when Sky execs talk about the future of their service, it's all HD-this and HD-that. With Virgin, not a word.
But things are moving, and hopefully in a positive direction for every Virgin Media customer. On past experience I wouldn't recommend holding your breath just yet for more HD, but a more efficient network is good for all. Let's just hope Berkett and VM take full advantage of it and don't put all of their eggs - and our money - into just the broadband basket.

Virgin first quarter results

Headlines (with year-on-year comparisons) :

• Continued customer and RGU growth
• 204,300 total RGU net additions (Q1-07: 145,100)
• 4,900 on-net customer net additions (Q1-07: 46,900 net disconnects)
• On-net churn declined to 1.2% (Q1-07: 1.6%); lowest since 2004
• 88,400 on-net broadband net additions (Q1-07: 87,900)
• 29,000 on-net telephony net additions (Q1-07: 63,400 net disconnects)
• 36,800 TV net additions (Q1-07: 36,100)
• Record triple-play penetration of 51.3% (Q1-07: 42.9%)
• Operating loss of GBP 5m (Q1-07: GBP 15m)

More details on the cable TV side of the business from the official press release:

Total TV net additions were 36,800 in the quarter (Q4-07: 61,100; Q1-07: 36,100). As anticipated, this was lower than in the previous quarter partly due to alterations to acquisition offers in order to emphasize higher priced TV tiers.

1.6m of our TV customers are now using our VOD service on a monthly basis, representing a reach of 48%. Average views per user per month in the quarter were 24 compared to 23 in the previous quarter and 11 a year ago. Average monthly views were 36m in the quarter, up 10% on the previous quarter and up 155% on the same quarter last year.

In April 2008, we launched the BBC's iPlayer service on our VOD platform offering hundreds of hours of BBC catch-up content. Developments like this give VOD a new impetus and help establish on-demand as a genuinely mainstream TV service.

During the quarter, we added a record 101,800 V+ DVR subscribers to reach an installed base of 364,200. This represents a penetration level of just 11% of our digital subscribers and so the growth opportunity remains strong. In addition, based on our experience, DVR subscribers and VOD users are less likely to churn.

The mix of TV subscribers improved during the quarter, with growth in the percentage of subscribers on our top basic tier. We believe that this growth continued to be positively affected by increased VOD content and usage and the addition of the Setanta Sports channels into our top basic tier.

And on a positive note, according to Reuters today Berkett has revealed that Sky and VM are in serious discussions about the return of the Sky basics to Virgin Media

Berkett in Madrid

According to the Broadband TV website Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett has said at the Cable Congress 2008 show in Madrid this week:

“We’re significantly improving our proposition in terms of HD and expanding our library, but we still have a long way to go before we hit the consumer mainstream that we aspire to. We need to educate consumers and drive experimentation.”

Berkett returned to familiar ground during his Wednesday evening keynote, putting his case for “economic access” to [Sky’s] pay-TV content and setting out the advantages of cable broadband over DSL to a willing audience.

What does this mean? Hopefully there will be more HD on demand available when the new iPlayer and 4OD services are introduced in May, and maybe a return of the Sky basics is pending, and possibly a Virgin IPTV offering is in the pipeline. Interesting.

"Virgin only needs one HD channel"!!!

Big story over at Digital Spy that interprets comments made by Virgin Media management as saying "they only need one HD channel". VM don't actually say "one's enough" (bit of tabloid journalism on DS's part there). Here are the salient points without the DS spin:

"Chief executive Neil Berkett and chief technology officer Howard Watson both addressed the issue of advanced TV services at the Cable Congress in Madrid this week.

"Watson said the popularity of HD in the US - where significantly more content and channels are generally available - was driven by the country's NTSC analogue television system. It is generally accepted that it gives a worse picture than PAL, the alternative employed in the UK.

"We don’t have the ‘Never The Same Colour’ challenge that has driven HD offering in the US," said Watson, according to Broadband TV News. "We have 7m HD ready sets in the UK and I still think HD works really well for certain bits of content but is disappointing for others.

"I don’t think we’re losing customers because we don’t have the HD lineup that Sky has. It’s not causing us a churn problem - all of our HD customers [have] PVRs - so it's difficult to separate them, but a part of that is HD."
...
"Neil Berkett used his comments at the Madrid event to talk up its commitment to offering VoD. ... Berkett said the strategy was going well - subscribers now spend more hours watching VoD than linear channel Five - but admitted the "need to educate consumers and drive experimentation" in order to push the service."

Still disheartening mind - has Berkett seen the paucity of VOD HD content of late? It's thrown up in such a slapdash manner it beggars belief - last night two episodes of Band of Brothers were added to the first five: episode 7, and a second listing for episode 5! How inept is that??

I maintain this blog because there seems to be a genuine passion for more HD services on Virgin Media - it gets around 6,000 visits a month and the folk who comment on it are all singing the same tune - we genuinely need more HD on the Virgin Media. If Freesat launches with a handful of HD channels and better bit rates for the Freeview line up, I reckon a lot of folk will move both from Sky and Virgin. I don't disagree with VM that Video On Demand is fantastic and very important, but they've got to promote it better than the nonsensical Samuel L Jackson ads that look great but hardly educate.

Postscript: on another Digital Spy thread, Virgin are saying this in an email to customers

"We still agree with you that adding both the main HD channels (eg BBC HD) and an increasing vod HD selection is the way to go. But it's early days as you know. Ch4 HD has lots of SD still in it, and neither ITV nor Ch5 have launched HD" properly yet. Meanwhile, we will continue to add more specific HD content to the vod platform.

New Inside Virgin blog worth checking out

Catching up on my email before going to bed (bloody jet lag) and Virgin1's launched a great blog which you can find here. Nice work mate - I've added a permanent link to the site in the right hand column of this blog, too.

Off Topic: VM Broadband support

Anyone who has trouble with their Virgin Media Broadband service will be pleased to hear that the ridiculous premium charge for Broadband support is to be dropped. Here's the story from The Register in full:

Virgin Media will drop premium rate charges to its technical support line in June, less than a year after they were introduced, the firm has confirmed.

An email doing the rounds inside VM says the move last summer to discourage irrelevant calls to the broadband support line has not gone down well. It confirms that the 25p per minute line will revert to a standard local rate 0845 number, or free by dialling 151 from a cable phone.

"This year, one of our key aims is to delight our customers by improving customer service - and boy are we serious about it," the author gushes.

Customers will be emailed about the changes in April and May.

A Virgin Media spokesman said today: "Whilst calls to the premium rate broadband support line are already refunded when there has been a fault with our network, perhaps that wasn't clear.

"We have been working hard to improve customer service and listening to what our customers say, so will now be removing this charge from the outset."

As someone who has a problem every evening when my 20Mb BB falls below 6Mb, I'll be hot on the blower as soon as it's free. Enjoy a happy Hi Def easter everyone!

New V+ box will be a Samsung rather than SA/Cisco

News from this Digital Spy thread is that the new V+ box announced last week by Berkett will be manufactured by Samsung rather than Scientific Atlanta / Cisco. I don't know any more details and, as Samsung don't currently list a PVR in their product range at the moment, can't offer more details. My regular Samsung box from Virgin has been extremely reliable and I know their TVs are very popular - will the new V+ be a star performer? Will it have HD capabilities? If so, will they be Mpeg4? What size hard disc will they have? Will the SD upscaling be as good as the current V+?
If you didn't know me better, you'd think I was getting excited...
(Incidentally, my previous post on the new V+ possibly being a Cisco box has been removed as that now proves to be inaccurate speculation.)

Virgin Media's Q4 2007 results

Virgin Media’s results for the final quarter of 2007 make interesting reading. Tucked away in the fairly lengthy press release are numbers that show good growth on the TV front (the best quarter’s growth since 2004 in fact) and also strong performances on all other fronts. Here’s the TV piece in full:

Total TV net additions were 61,100 in the quarter, up from 20,400 in the previous quarter. This represented the best quarter for at least seven years, based on pro forma combined operating statistics for periods prior to the cable merger. We believe this result was aided by the attractiveness of our VOD platform. 1.5 million of our TV customers are now using our VOD service on a monthly basis, representing a reach of 47%. Average views per user per month in the fourth quarter were 23 compared to 10 at the start of 2007. Average monthly views were 33 million in the quarter, up 45% on the previous quarter.

TV net additions were also positively affected by a record quarter for driving DVR penetration, partly due to a promotional reduction in DVR pricing. During the quarter, we added 72,200 V+ DVR subscribers to reach an installed base of 262,400. This represents a penetration level of just 8% of our digital subscribers and so the growth opportunity remains strong. In addition, based on our experience, DVR subscribers and VOD users are less likely to churn.

(For those not savvy with the acronyms, VOD is Video on Demand and DVR is Digital Video Recorder.)

So there are now over a quarter of a million VM customers equipped with HD capable boxes. Although the release talks of the “growth opportunity remains strong”, there’s no indication how they attend to secure that growth – marketing the V+ seems to be taking a backseat to the broadband push and certainly there’s no enhancements to the HD services to shout about. In fact, the only place I’m seeing the V+ promoted is on the side of the vans whizzing around South East London (Blackwall Tunnel permitting).

For me and mine, the V+ is the best piece of technology in the house. Easy to use, reliable, and an absolutely cracking TV picture. It’s a shame that VM don’t realise that with this and the VOD service they really do have something to shout about that’ll grow their revenues. But no, they’re still pushing a broadband service that has notable speed deficiencies in the peak evening hours and declining to add HD channels despite an obvious deficiency with even the basics (such as 4HD). Ho hum.

Postscript: The presentation made to investors today can be found here

HD On Demand update

Here's an update (Saturday, Feb 18 2008) on the HD On Demand programming available currently to ex-NTL customers. Virgin have finally completed some seasons (notably Day Break and Lost, which are now all complete) and the inconsistencies are a lot less irritating now.

BBC (Home - 6 - 2 - 1)
Ant Attack
The Blue Planet: Introduction
The Blue Planet: Frozen Seas
The Blue Planet: Coasts
The Blue Planet: Coral Seas
The Blue Planet: Frozen Seas
The Blue Planet: Open Oceans
The Blue Planet: Seasonal Seas
The Blue Planet: The Deep
The Blue Planet: Tidal Seas
Desert Lions
Diana - Last Days of a Princess
Great Natural Wonders of the World
Hannibal
Hotel Babylon Season Two episodes 2 - 8
The Innocence Project 1-8 except episode 4
Planet Earth: episodes 1-5
The Quatermass Experiment
Rick Stein and the Japanese Ambassador
Superstorm 1-3
Supervolcano 1-2
All saying "79 days left"

Filmflex HD (all £4 unless mentioned)
Alpha Dog
Black Christmas
The Breed
Face/Off
Gone in Sixty Seconds
The Messengers
Moliere (£3.50)
The Painted Veil
The Queen (£3.50)
The Village

TV Choice On Demand (Home - 5 - 9 - 1)
Criminal Minds Season One 1 - 22
Day Break 1-13
Dog Fight 2 episodes
Engineering An Empire 3 episodes
Ghost Whisperer Season One 1 - 22
Mega Movers 2 episodes
Lost Season One 1-25
Lost Season Two 1 - 23
Lost Season Three 1 - 23
Night Stalker Season One 3, 4, 5

Finally - Day Break 13 arrives!

Those who've been waiting for the final episode of Day Break in HD - it's arrived!
TV Choice On Demand now has all 13 episodes listed under High Definition. Hurrah!

The Value of High Definition Services

The blog’s latest poll demonstrates the predicament over HD; almost half of the respondents said that they would not be prepared to shell out an extra £10 a month for more high definition services. 45% (of 284 voters) said they wouldn’t pay for the Sky HD channels, and given that this blog is pretty much preaching to the HD converted, that really does ask a question regarding the financial benefit to a company like Virgin Media of High Definition services today.
Admittedly the HD channels from Sky aren’t compulsive viewing for everyone, but last month’s poll had Sky Sports HD as the most wanted channels on cable, so I’m somewhat surprised by this month’s vote. For an extra £10 a month, Sky HD subscribers get two sports and movies HD channels, Sky One, National Geographic, History Channel, Discovery, Sky Arts and Channel 4. Is that worth £10 a month? Only 155 of you thought that was worth £120 a year – so what do VM do?
I think the vast majority of Virgin customers will be satisfied (for now) with the HD versions of the main broadcasters’ flagships; BBC, ITV, C4 and Five. Throw in a high definition Film4 or Five US, all for free, and we’d be very happy bunnies indeed. What’s more, I think envious Sky HD customers would be demanding the reduction or elimination of their monthly bills, too – check out some of the Sky HD forums over on Digital Spy.
The truth is that HD, fabulous though it is, is still very much of minority appeal in the UK. This ain’t the States, where the SD picture is almost unwatchable and the average TV is approximately the width of a terraced house – the SD on a V+ of a higher bitrate channel is exceptionally good on the average UK LCD. It’s not high-end home cinema, but it is sufficiently HD-enough for the average family.
That may not be comfortable reading for the HD aficionado (who is unlikely to be a Virgin customer out of choice anyway) but is pretty much the reality. For Virgin, an HD offering matching FreeSat’s basics when it launches later this year will probably be sufficient to keep the vast majority of its customer base happy, especially given the current V+’s limits with storing Mpeg2 HD programming. VM’s latest customer figures are due to be revealed any day now – the increase in V+ subscribers will be primarily down to the PVR functionality rather than HD capability. And I strongly suspect Virgin’s HD offering will be limited in its expansion in 2008, and for the foreseeable future. C’est la vie.

High Definition On Demand programming

Here's an update (Saturday, Jan 26 2008) on the HD programming available currently to ex-NTL customers.

BBC (Home - 6 - 2 - 1)
Ant Attack
The Blue Planet: Introduction
The Blue Planet: Frozen Seas
The Blue Planet: Coasts
The Blue Planet: Coral Seas
The Blue Planet: Frozen Seas
The Blue Planet: Open Oceans
The Blue Planet: Seasonal Seas
The Blue Planet: The Deep
The Blue Planet: Tidal Seas
Desert Lions
Diana - Last Days of a Princess
Great Natural Wonders of the World
Hannibal
Hotel Babylon Season Two episodes 2 - 8
The Innocence Project 1-8 except episode 4
Planet Earth: episodes 1-5
The Quatermass Experiment
Rick Stein and the Japanese Ambassador
Superstorm 1-3
Supervolcano 1-2
All saying "79 days left"

Filmflex HD (all £4 unless mentioned)
Alpha Dog
Black Christmas
The Breed
Face/Off
Gone in Sixty Seconds
The Messengers
Moliere
The Painted Veil
The Queen (£3.50)
The Village

TV Choice On Demand (Home - 5 - 9 - 1)
Criminal Minds Season One 1 - 22
Day Break 1-12 (missing the season finale, 13!)
Dog Fight 2 episodes
Engineering an Empire 3 episodes
Ghost Whisperer Season One 1 - 22 except 21
Mega Movers 3 episodes
Lost Season Two 1 - 24