NTL Ends Second Quarter Nearly Half Way To Digital Subscriber Target

NTL has announced operating statistics for the second quarter of the year which show that the company is still on course to reach its digital television subscriber target by the end of the year.

The company says that the number of subscribers by the end of the second quarter was around 230,000. The target for the close of the year is 500,000. This was the same target set by Telewest for its digital service roll-out. However, beset by component shortages for its set-top boxes, Telewest admitted last week that it won’t be able to add enough to its current customer base of 223,000 to reach the target by the end of the year (see Set-Top Box Shortage Puts Telewest Three Months Behind).

NTL has not been without its own problems this quarter. Last month saw the ITC uphold complaints from 92 viewers who wanted to respond to advertising for ntlworld, the free internet service, but found the company unable to cope with demand (see ITC Upholds Complaints Of 92 Against NTL World Ads). The advertising was eventually pulled while NTL caught up with the backlog (see NTL Pulls Advertising Of Net Service). However, having recovered from being a victim of its own success, NTL points out that its deal with Virgin (see NTL And Virgin To Split Virgin.net) will make it the 3rd largest ISP in the UK, with around 1.1 million subscribers.

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