Virgin Media hails growth 'turnaround'

Virgin Media signalled today that an era of upheaval marked by public rows with BSkyB was behind it as the cable TV company posted its strongest customer growth in more than a year. The group, created by the merger of NTL and Telewest and the takeover of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile service, said it had added 13,000 new customers in the third quarter of the year. That increase marked a turnaround from the second quarter when the company lost more than 70,000 customers, hit by the spat with its satellite rival over the carriage on Virgin Media of basic Sky channels such as Sky One.