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Virgin Media to trim workforce

11 Nov 2008 | 20.14 Europe/London
Reports suggest that Virgin Media plan to cut their workforce by 15% by 2012 as part of a plan to increase cashflow.

The debt-laden company, which as NTL went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, also said the company has won a deal to delay its debt repayments - giving it until 2012 to refinance £4.3bn worth of loans.

VM recently announced the return, on 13 November, of Sky's Basic channels – including Sky1, Sky2, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 – to their cable TV service.

The third quarter results show that VM continue to lose "off-net" (ADSL) broadband customers while showing growth in cable broadband customers and also in those taking the faster cable services - although the impressive sounding 78% increase in users of the fastest "XL" service could well be from a small starting point.