Advanced Television

Netflix billing boost for Virgin Media

June 18, 2018

Multiplay operator Virgin Media has further strengthened its longstanding partnership in the UK with Netflix.

From October 2018, all new and existing Virgin TV customers who don’t yet have Netflix will be able instantly to  add and pay for Netflix through their Virgin Media bill, giving them an easier way to access thousands more TV shows and movies including original series, documentaries and feature films on Netflix.

Virgin TV already fully integrates Netflix into its content discovery experiences such as ‘Smart Search’ which means customers can easily find and save their favourite Netflix programmes and movies all from within the Virgin TV platform.

The billing move follows Virgin Media becoming the first pay-TV provider to bring the online entertainment service onto its platform in September 2013, since which time more than 700 million hours of programming have been viewed through the Netflix app on Virgin TV’s platform, with over 100 million hours watched so far in 2018 alone.

“Virgin TV has always been about giving our customers the TV they love all in one place,” remarked Jeff Dodds, Managing Director of Consumer and Mobile at Virgin Media. “We were the first to embrace this open philosophy by embedding Netflix into our platform back in 2013 and it’s clearly something that our customers absolutely love. By expanding our relationship further we’re forming an even deeper relationship with our friends at Netflix and giving our customers a simpler way to pay for the service.”

“For Netflix, partnerships with cable providers and operators will be crucial in attracting new customers,” suggests Paolo Pescatore, VP, Multiplay and Media, CCS Insight. “More so as it continues to heavily focus on tailoring content requirements to suit local markets.”

“Consumers are spoilt with choice due to the rise of online video services. However, this is leading to huge fragmentation resulting in users forced to sign up to numerous services. However, in reality, consumers do not want to sign up to numerous services, receive more bills and be forced to open several apps to find the content they want. Therefore, we will see the return of big content bundles delivered over Internet connections,” he predicts.

 

 

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