Neil Berkett, CEO of Virgin Media, said:

"There is a growing and increasingly broadbased population of people who are becoming dependent on next generation digital technology and are prepared to pay for quality services. During the first half, we have continued to focus relentlessly on delivering superior services tailored to the needs of these data-hungry households and businesses.

The increasing demand is evident in a 25% increase in data consumption among Virgin Medias customers in just six months who have watched and downloaded more content then ever before. This trend is rapidly transforming the profile of our subscriber base, with more than half of all new broadband customers choosing 30Mb or higher compared to just 18% a year ago.

As digital media services become more central to our professional, family and social lives, the combination of our leading network and a clearly differentiated range of products makes Virgin Media uniquely equipped to exploit the growth opportunity that this presents. During the quarter, we have seen an encouraging early take-up of Virgin Media TiVo, our new game-changing entertainment platform, and we have recently unveiled a high impact advertising campaign which will see this compelling service marketed to new customers for the first time.

The significant increases in free cash flow and OCF, together with steady revenue growth, are testimony to the resilience of our targeted strategy during a difficult economic climate and discount-led competitor activity. Management's continued confidence in our underlying business approach, and ability to drive sustainable growth in shareholder value, is reflected in a new £850 million capital return programme, which is designed to take the total amount of stock repurchased since mid 2010 to £1 billion."