Virgin Media To Carry Advertising On VoD And EPG Services
Virgin Media is to begin carrying advertising on its VoD service and EPG next year.
According to reports in the trade press, chief executive of the company’s content division, Malcolm Wall, has said that testing is underway for pre-, mid- and post-roll ads to be placed in the content on the VoD service.
Other advertising models are more likely to be tried out first, he admitted, such as targeted advertising around sections of the EPG, such as travel advertising placed around the lifestyle section of the guide.
“My view on monetising VoD is that we can do inserted ads around VoD on a pre-roll or post-roll basis. I think we will probably do that,” he said.
“But we are not ready to do that just yet. If we did now we would have to sell [the inventory] quite cheaply and we might not get the right price when the medium becomes more widespread,” he added.
Wall also remarked that there was an issue around measurement. “TV is very measured, but for VoD it isn’t there right now,” he observed.
Video-on-Demand is to remain a strong focus for the company in the coming months, with a possible expansion of the service led by the addition of over 2,000 hours of new content.
The report also suggests that Sir Richard Branson’s cable company is currently in talks with the BBC about launching a TV set-based version of the iPlayer (see BBC’s iPlayer Beta Test Encounters Problems).
Virgin Media is also said to be launching round the clock HDTV linear channels in the New Year.
The company lost 70,300 subscribers across its four cable and mobile services in the three months to the end of June.
The operator added 2,200 new cable TV subscribers during the quarter, saying that the removal of Sky’s basic channels in March resulted in it losing 40,000 customers across its range of services (see Virgin Media And Sky: The Story So Far).
Net broadband additions were 48,500, down from 87,900 in the first three months of 2007, whilst Virgin Mobile customer numbers rose in the second quarter by 53,000 to 299,000.
The company reported a pre-tax profit of £315.3 million, whilst operating income was £3 million, compared with an operating loss of £15.3 million in the first quarter.
The company reported a net loss of £119 million, which was a slight gain over the £120.3 million loss of the previous quarter (see Virgin Media Loses 70,300 Subscribers In Q2).
Virgin Media: www.virginmedia.com