Originally Posted by Tom Scott 
Virgin Media is just still NTL, except they have Virgin branding. Mr Branson got a 17.5% share in NTL in exchange for Virgin Mobile, plus £9M a year to Virgin for using the brand.
I do wonder why people seem to have come to the conclusion that its Virgin now so things will get better. Its far more likely that Mr Branson will just be sitting there, laughing all the way to the bank with£175k per week being deposited into his bank account for the use of the name.
Oh also the name has been sold for 30 years to NTL so thats a mere £270 million pounds to Mr Branson, just for a name!
Just to clarify the NTL and Sky comparison, afaik NTL engineers are employed by NTL, Sky engineers are all sub-contractors. So the subbies are liable themselves for all the mistakes they make, where as the NTL engineers aren't liable for squat, its their employers that foot the bill. I've got 2 NTL 'points' in my house, both are an absolute mess, still got brick dust falling on the floor from the one in my bedroom thats after 8 years. The Sky install we had years ago on the other hand was completely and still is very neatly done.
Tom,
Interesting to see your take and those figures you quote for Virgin's/Branson's cut of the deal. Where did they come from? I ask because I tried VERY hard to locate such info to include in my news piece.
However, I'd like to think that anyone who had read
my original piece would have fully understood that ntl:Telewest was, in effect, renting the Virgin name - albeit making some changes to the quality of customer service as part of the deal.
The opening page said this:
At yesterday's briefing, it was openly admitted that the quality of customer service had been unacceptably poor for ntl users and far inferior to that enjoyed by those who'd signed up in Telewest areas.
However, it was claimed that things would be far better from now. According to the two top bods from ntl:Telewest (chairman Jim Moody and CEO Steve Burch) and Richard Branson himself - all with hands on heart - this was because there had genuinely been more than just a name-change.
An extra 300 customer-care staff had been recruited, training had been greatly improved and the whole company ethos was being changed to reflect the customer-centred priorities of a Virgin company.
To us, though, more telling still was the statement that 19 out of 20 of the company's top executives have changed in the last year.
It all sounded very plausible - and calls we made yesterday to the company's support lines showed that front-line staff seem to think there really has been a sea-change.
But we can't help wondering just how certain anyone can be when Virgin Media isn't owned and run by Branson himself - it uses the Virgin brand on a sort of franchise basis, with Branson lending his support and name.
Time, of course, will show whether the fine words reflect genuine changes but there's little doubt that the company appears to be thinking and acting smarter than in the past.