As a further step in its ongoing battle with fierce rival Sky, Virgin Media has made the BBC’s iPlayer available on its cable television system.

Customers of Virgin now have access to the previous seven days of BBC programming content which is over 350 hours of content. This service is available free of charge to existing customers by just pressing the red button whilst viewing any BBC channel. This makes a great addition to Virgins existing video on demand (VOD) service, which already gives consumers access to 4,300 hours of programs and the service is used by around half of their existing 3.4 million customer base.

A quote from Malcolm Wall, chief executive of Virgin Media content said: “The enormous success of iPlayer online has demonstrated the desire that television viewers have for viewing quality programming at a time that suits them, and now it’s available from the comfort of the living room.”

The iPlayer service offered by is delivered via an MPEG2 stream, allowing better quality viewing than Internet streams.This is an important step in the BBC’s strategy to turn the hugely popular iPlayer into a multi platform service rather than internet only.

The Sky Plus service allows viewers to record, pause and rewind live tv but offers no access to an archive of content as its difficult to support using existing satellite broadcasting technology. James Murdoch, BSkyB’s chairman, said last week that the iPlayer is a “pre-emptive intervention” in the internet TV market that is “squashing a lot of competitors”.

Young Mr Murdoch already wary of the iPlayer may be choking on his cornflakes at the BBC’s other major video on demand service, Project Kangaroo which is a joint venture with ITV and Channel 4. This service will give internet tv viewers access to 10,000 hours of the groups programs and will be launched later this year.

Great news that Sky’s stranglehold on Premium channels is being loosened.

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