As Virgin Media (Nasdaq: VMED) waits out the lull in the debt markets and extends its deadline for “several” companies to submit bids for the company, it released its Q2 results. The company posted an operating profit of £3 million ($6.1 million), compared to a Q1 loss of £15.3 million. The numbers were still only half as good as the £6.3 million operating profit posted in the same period last year. It narrowed its net loss to £119 million from £195.8 million a year earlier.
— Net customer losses in cable and broadband totaled 70,300. Virgin Media blames 40,000 of those subscribers on its dispute with satellite rival BSkyB over pricing to carry Sky channels, “but we have done better than we expected,” said Chairman Jim Mooney. COO Neil Berkett said he didn’t expect those channels to be added back in the near future.
— New content to offset BSkyB channel dispute. Some of the content Virgin has launched in recent months to draw in viewers includes a deal with Setanta Sports to carry six channels; a new channel, Virgin 1, which goes live this autumn; a Virgin Media sports broadband portal with exclusive rights for football clips from the Premier League and Football League.
— VOD: Virgin claims that 44 percent of its digital TV base now uses VOD on a monthly basis, with 14 VOD monthly views per user, up 43 percent in the year-to-date. Virgin is currently working with BBC to be the first provider of the iPlayer on-demand service via television; it had a similar deal with Channel 4’s 4OD when it launched earlier this year, and Channel 4 have said that overwhelmingly more people use 4OD via TVs than via PCs. Mooney: “If you are a user of the VOD service you are very unlikely to churn.”
— Broadband customers grew by 51,000; the company now has 3.5 million users, making it the biggest single provider after BT in the country. (BSkyB reported 716,000 broadband customers in June.) Some 45.2 percent of its customer base take the triple-play package of TV, broadband and phone.
— Mobile subs increased by 53,000. Mooney reported 139,000 mobile customers picked up through its “4 for £40″ bundle but that represents only 3 percent of its cable base–so still a long way to go there.
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