Virgin Media focuses its sights on BSkyB

Published on Friday 9 February 2007 00:27

SIR Richard Branson has relaunched NTL in an attempt to take a lead in the telecoms and entertainment market with on-demand services, a string of TV deals, and a "revolutionary" television channel.

He said that in launching Virgin Media, created from the merger of NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile, he will be taking on BSkyB, BT and a host of others by offering digital TV, broadband internet access, and mobile and home phone services - known as "quadplay".

Steve Burch, the president and chief executive of Virgin Media, said: "We have created something t no other company provides. Virgin Central will make TV-on-demand the simple, compelling service it should be."

The new channel will complement Virgin Media's library of TV-on-demand entertainment, which includes over 500 films, highlights from the previous week's primetime schedule, classic series and music videos.

Branson said that, for the first time, there is a "single brand set to provide a more extensive range of television entertainment, broadband and communication services" than previously offered in the UK.

He added: Our transition to Virgin Media has been under way since last July and will continue over the coming months."

There will be four price plans: two products from the "quadplay" menu for 20, three for 30 or four for 40, plus the option of a "VIP" premium package. NTL bought Virgin Mobile last July for 962.4m, which brought together NTL's 5.1 million cable customers and 4.3 million users of Virgin Mobile phones.

The Virgin Mobile deal followed NTL's $6bn (3.2bn) purchase of Telewest in March.

Virgin Media will go head to head with BSkyB, which only launched its broadband, TV and phone package last month, called See, Speak, Surf.

BSkyB scuppered NTL's hopes of a 5bn takeover of ITV last November when it bought a 17.9 per cent stake in ITV - a move that is currently being investigated by Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading.