Survey: Virgin Media customers 'not happy'

As Virgin Media gets ready for a marketing push through its sponsorship of Big Brother 8, the company has been dealt a blow by a new survey.

Commissioned by Swiss investment bank UBS and conducted by research company GfK NOP, the survey of 1,000 households found that 45% of Virgin's television customers would switch provider if they could. Of the study group, 10% planned to quit as a result of the removal of Sky One and other channels from Virgin's cable service.

The research stated that Virgin was suffering an "identity crisis" as Sky's broadband and landline offerings had taken away from Ntl:Telewest previous "triple-play" offering, and that the customers surveyed perceived that Sky offered a better product and customer service. Although 14% of households had an "ideological aversion to Sky and are unlikely ever to subscribe".

The report said: "Our survey strongly suggests that Sky customers do not see Virgin as a credible alternative...Virgin appears to have underestimated the value of Sky's basic channels, with our survey indicating up to 400,000 subscribers could switch to Sky."

A Virgin Media spokesperson said: "The headline projections UBS has driven off this sample group should be treated with extreme caution. As we have said, the full impact of the loss of Sky's withdrawal of its basic channels will be seen in the second quarter. We have seen a significant drop-off in call-centre activity since March/April when this survey was carried out and, based on actual customer behaviour to date; we believe TV customer losses have been contained to a fraction of that suggested by UBS."