Virgin Media shows viewers love TiVo
Some commentators were sceptical about the likely popularity of Virgin Media's TiVo service in the early days of its launch, but consumers are now flocking to the technology.
The cable company's TiVo set-top boxes hit the market in late 2010, but were originally only available to existing customers and were not heavily promoted, meaning initial uptake was low.
However, that slow progress now seems to be a thing of the past. Since Virgin Media began offering the service to new subscribers and supported the rollout with a high-profile advertising campaign, the customer base has rocketed.
Any lingering doubts about Virgin Media TiVo were surely put to bed last week when the pay TV giant revealed the subscriber base more than doubled in the final quarter of 2011 to 435,000 households, representing 12 per cent of all its TV customers.
Viewers love the freedom and flexibility offered by the TiVo set-top box and the ability to watch whatever they want at any time. In fact, throughout the whole of 2011 Virgin Media TV customers notched up more than one billion views of on-demand content, up by 14 per cent on the previous year, with the company claiming this growth has largely been driven by the rising adoption of TiVo.
However, Virgin Media is clearly aware that it needs to keep moving TiVo forward if its rising popularity is to continue. With the YouView broadband-connected TV service set to hit the market in the coming months, TiVo will soon be facing increased competition and with that in mind Virgin is looking to make the product even more attractive to potential customers.
Chief executive Neil Berkett recently told Bloomberg that Virgin Media is in talks with high-profile streaming media providers with a view to adding their services to the TiVo box. Content from the likes of Netflix and LOVEFiLM would help to increase demand for what is an already-popular service.
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