Press Release
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| 08/02/07 |
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| Branson’s London launch-lounge |
Virgin boss ‘Teesed' into Virgin Media launch stunt Virgin Media (NASDAQ: VMED), the biggest company under the Virgin brand, launches today. To celebrate, Richard Branson is handing control of his life to the great British public for a day. Virgin Media is set to shake up the entertainment industry by putting consumers firmly back in charge and giving them exactly what they want. Consumer control starts from the off, with Richard Branson allowing the public to make all his decisions for him on launch day. So everyone can see exactly what he's up to, the Virgin boss will be spending the day in a glass lounge in central London. He'll be enticed straight from the launch press conference into his see-through living room by an alluring Hollywood starlet. From this point on Richard Branson's life is out of his hands. The stunt will take place in a specially created launch-lounge in the middle of Covent Garden. Branson's only link with the outside world will be Virgin Media's ‘quadplay' services of digital TV, broadband, home and mobile phone. But he won't have a chance to get too settled as he'll be joined by a range of celebrity friends throughout the day. Richard Branson will be able to call, text and email with the help of a series of very glamorous personal assistants. And if it all gets a little too tiring, he can sit back and watch himself starring in his very own reality TV show as all action from the box will be broadcast on three digital TV channels.1 Anyone with access to a mobile phone or the internet will be able to choose exactly how Richard spends his day from 11am till 6pm and which of his celebrity friends can pop by his very public pad. Richard's day could include: A dedicated website – www.virginmedia.com/joinin - has been created for
today's launch where visitors can get involved in the day's activities,
vote on what Richard gets up to and potentially win the contents of his temporary
home. For those who aren't near a telly or Covent Garden – updates
are available from the ‘Bran -cam' mounted in the box. Richard Branson said: “I'm not sure how I feel about being at the mercy of the public for seven hours but as Virgin Media is all about putting consumers back in control – it's only fitting that I commit to this from the very beginning. The launch of Virgin Media is going to have the competition running scared and I'm looking forward to seeing how they try and react to the largest Virgin branded company in the world. “Virgin loves to do things differently but sticking me in a glass living room in central London is taking our levels of transparency to a whole new level. Given the size and scale of the launch – it's miraculous that I get to lounge around for most of the day.” To find out more about Virgin Media services, visit www.virginmedia.com. Ends
Virgin Media is an innovative and pioneering UK entertainment and communications business. For the first time consumers can get everything they need from one company - the UK's only quad play of TV, broadband, phone and mobile plus the UK's most advanced TV on demand service available, the UK's first high definition TV service and V+, our high specification personal video recorder. We're the UK's most popular broadband provider, the largest virtual mobile network operator and the second largest provider of pay tv and home phone. Virgin Media owns two content businesses - Virgin Media Television and sit-up. Virgin Media Television owns seven entertainment channels - Living, Living 2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Challenge, Trouble and Ftn - and is a 50% partner in UKTV which consists of ten channels including UKTV Gold and UKTV History. sit-up runs retail TV channels bid tv, price-drop tv and speed auctiontv. ntl: Telewest Business is the division of the Virgin Media Group serving business customers and provides voice, data and internet solutions to leading businesses, public sector organisations and service providers in the UK. Virgin Media is the largest Virgin company in the world and has almost 10 million customers (5m cable, 4.5m Virgin Mobile, 250,000 virgin.net). To find out more visit www.virginmedia.com/presscentre
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