Virgin Media 'delighted' by customer demand for TiVo

Broadcast Engineering reports that Virgin...

....has been delighted by demand given that the service has been offered only to existing customers and promoted on its website. At this stage, Virgin Media is testing the waters for what is a high-cost sale at present, given that its engineers spend some time with customers at the point of installation to show them how to use all of the additional features, particularly accessing Web content and interacting with Facebook. Virgin Media provides VOD and catch-up services within its existing lineup, but the new service combines these with the additional Web access within a new EPG. The main EPG enhancement is a recommendation engine that monitors the viewer’s preferences, records the content automatically to the DVR and makes suggestions.

Virgin Media anticipates that the cost of sales will fall, and the TiVo functionality will be extended gradually across the rest of its services as customer familiarity grows. It will also be advertised more aggressively as Virgin chases customers from its rivals in an increasingly saturated UK pay-TV market.