Popularity of on-demanded services are increasing and Virgin Media has seen a huge increase in demand for their catch-up offerings, their latest stats reveal they have hit 200 million views in 2010 alone. The amount of homes viewing content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Virgin1 and living as well as movies in the first three months of the year has risen by 250,000 year on year, to 2.1 million homes.
This high demand has been put down to the quality of programming on offer Virgin Media say that programs such as Glee, Shameless and Skins meant that 8 million tuned into 4oD in March via the service. They also found that 250,000 tuned into EastEnders Live on the iPlayer through their Virgin Media boxes.
The need for on-demand content has never been higher, intact during February, the BBC announced that the iPlayer was receiving some 120 million requests a month showing popularity for on-demand is rising.
Cindy Rose, executive director, digital entertainment, at Virgin Media, said. “Watching TV on demand is now part of the nations’ daily viewing habits, with millions of people tuning into the TV programs they love when they want to watch them.”
Also later this year, the company is set to release its own web rival to the iPlayer and Sky Player, meaning Virgin Media isn’t slowing down in its push for on-demand content.