Virgin Media VoD viewing up 50%

The cable TV company Virgin Media recorded 750m views of video-on-demand content last year, a 50% year-on-year increase, driven by the success of the BBC iPlayer and the ITV Player on its service. In December Virgin Media recorded 76m views of content on its on-demand service, a 6% increase on November. The most popular shows last month included Gavin & Stacey, EastEnders, Coronation Street, The X Factor, and the Royle Family and Doctor Who Christmas specials. Virgin Media said that 59% of its 3.9 million TV subscribers regularly accessed video-on-demand content last year, an increase of 250,000 homes compared with 2008. The cable company said that on-demand views of iPlayer content had grown from 10.5m in June 2008, when it launched, to 20m views in December. Virgin Media added that Coronation Street, The X Factor and I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! helped drive 25m views in the last three months of 2009 on the ITV Player. In total 11m movies were watched on demand last year, with December seeing a 29% boost over November usage. Kids' programming, such as High School Musical, Hannah Montana and Dora the Explorer, generated almost 22m views last year. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".