70,000 UK customers quit Virgin Media after BSkyB row

Virgin Media today revealed the impact of its row with BSkyB after cable and broadband customer numbers fell by 70,000 in the quarter to June 30.

The group – formed from mergers involving Telewest, NTL and Virgin Mobile - estimated that 40,000 of the subscribers were lost because of Sky’s removal of its basic channels from the Virgin Media television platform on March 1.

The two companies failed to agree terms on pricing, but Virgin said today it expected the impact of the row to be contained within the second quarter. It has sought to bolster its own content offering, including through a partnership with sports broadcaster Setanta.

Virgin’s customer base stood at 4.7 million at the end of June 30, down 70,300 on the previous quarter and causing consumer revenues to fall to £619.3m (€911m) from £637.3m (€937m) reported for the first quarter.

The company said it remained the UK’s largest residential broadband supplier, with 3.5 million subscribers. BT has around 3.8 million broadband customers, but an estimated 700,000 of those are from the business sector.