5 December 2005
Virgin and NTL could merge in a move which would see the markets for digital TV and broadband, among other media, rocked to the core.
The latter confirmed today that it has approached Richard Branson's company with a view to combining the two firms and creating a media and telecoms giant worth around £4.5 billion.
It is believed that any new company would take Virgin's name and could fulfil Branson's ambition of seeing domestic TV, broadband, fixed-line and mobile phone users able to utilise all of these services through a single provider – and on the same convenient bill.
A source told the Scotsman: "This would be tremendous value for money for consumers. By taking more services they would get them at a bigger discount.
"There would also be the tremendous simplicity of consumers potentially getting all their various services - digital TV, broadband internet and fixed line and mobile telephony - on one bill."
No formal offer has yet been made by NTL, but any deal would see a formidable alliance which could threaten BSkyB's dominance of the home entertainment market.
Potentially, the new company would have over nine million customers – and would steal a march on BSkyB, with Virgin's mobile service, the fifth largest in the UK, able to host digital TV programmes.
Get the best deal and save money comparing digital TV suppliers and packages at uSwitch.
© 2008 Adfero Ltd
Content for the uSwitch.com market news service is provided by a third party, Adfero Ltd. Whilst uSwitch.com makes reasonable efforts to check the reliability of this content, uSwitch.com does not guarantee the accuracy thereof or endorse the views or opinions given by Adfero Ltd, unless expressly stated otherwise.