Virgin wins 37,800 pay TV subscribers in Q3

And will more sign up now Sky bust up is over?

7 November 2008 11:20 GMT / By Katie Scott

Despite the economic doom and gloom, Virgin Media has announced that it expanded its pay-TV subscriber base by 37,800 in Q3 to end the period with 3.58 million subscribers.

People are obviously saving their pennies by staying in and watching TV, as Virgin said its video on demand service is also gaining fans.

On a monthly basis, 1.7 million of its digital TV customers are now using video-on-demand, and the company added that average views per user per month in the quarter were 27 compared to 17 a year ago.

Neil Berkett, chief executive of Virgin Media, said: "In the face of a slowdown in the general economy, our business has shown good resilience and we are focused on keeping churn low, improving our operational execution, and driving unnecessary costs and inefficiencies out of the business".

The announcement comes days after Virgin Media declared its content dispute with BSkyB finally over.

Virgin Media customers will now get back the Sky channels lost in a 20-month wrangle over money.