But the media business' chief executive officer Neil Berkett said its results ‘show encouraging progress, operationally and financially, against our key strategic priorities'.
Customers are increasingly using Virgin Media's video-on-demand (VOD) services. On a monthly basis, 1.9m of its digital TV customers now use VOD, representing a reach of 53%. Average views per user per month in the quarter were 29 compared to 24 a year ago. Average monthly views were 55m in the quarter, up 4% on the previous quarter and up 51% on the same quarter last year.
ITV Player enjoyed more than four million on-demand views in its first full month on Virgin Media's TV platform.
Virgin plans to roll out advertising around its video-on-demand content, after trials around on-demand programmes from VMtv, Channel 4 and Warner TV to approximately 100,000 homes.
In the first quarter, Virgin also started to add more HD channels to its channel line-up, and is currently negotiating with several broadcasters with a view to launching at least five new HD channels in the third quarter of 2009.
Virgin Media's total revenue in the first quarter was £935.7m, down slightly from £947.3m a year ago.
Successful bundling and cross-sell was reflected in continued growth in triple-play penetration, which reached a record 57% at the quarter-end compared to 51.3% a year ago.
Virgin said its up-selling focus in broadband has improved the number of subscribers on its top two broadband tiers (20Mb and 50Mb), which has increased by 48% to 416,200 in the last twelve months while the number of 10Mb subscribers has grown by 62% year-on-year to 946,500.
Operating income was G13m. compared to a £1.9m loss a year ago.
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