Cable ISP Virgin Media UK Extends Partnership with Netflix

In an unsurprising development Virgin Media’s parent company, Liberty Global, has announced a 3-year extension to their existing distribution deal with Netflix’s popular internet video streaming service. The TV and broadband provider was one of the very first UK ISP’s to fully integrate Netflix into their platform and offer a single bill.

The partnership is seen as having been broadly successful for Virgin Media, not least since roughly half of their V6 (set-top-box) based video subscribers regularly access Netflix content on their TV sets, and embedding the service has tended to deliver “significantly higher net promoter and customer satisfaction scores.”

Sadly today’s agreement doesn’t tell us if there will be any changes, although the operator has said that they will “continue to enhance functionality and overall integration of Netflix within its offering, beginning again with its UK operation.” We’re curious to see what those future enhancements represent, although it could also be a partial reference to the long awaited Horizon software update for v6 boxes (here).

Enrique Rodriguez, CTO of Liberty Global, said:

“We are excited to extend our partnership with Netflix and continue to provide the best of all worlds in content on a single, intuitive platform. Our customers are savvy. And with one voice control command, they can continue to directly access the programming they want on networks that deliver reliable, uninterrupted viewing. Netflix is a global leader in streaming content, and that’s precisely a partner we want for our customers.”

End.