VIRGIN MEDIA’s ambitious plans for a nationwide television service have been quietly kicked into the long grass.

The company has conceded that it will be at least 2009 before it can replicate its full range of services – TV, broadband, phone and mobile – for the half of the population that live outside its cable footprint.

As recently as May, Virgin was preparing to offer IPTV – television piped down phone lines – in 2008 after signing a wholesaling deal to use Cable & Wireless’s network.

Earlier this month, acting boss Neil Berkett told analysts there was little change to its “off-network” strategy. He said: “I did not provide an update on off-net as there is no update to be provided.”

The plan was designed to keep hold of TV customers who moved house away from Virgin’s network. It would also allow it to make better use of its brand to compete with satellite group BSkyB across the country for the first time.

The delay tallies with Berkett’s strategy of “doing less properly”. He is scaling back some projects set in train by his predecessor Steve Burch, who left in August.

Berkett decided that high-speed broadband is his “hero product” with which to do battle with BT, Carphone Warehouse and Sky, part-owned by News Corporation, ultimate parent of The Sunday Times. Virgin added a net 116,000 new broadband customers in the last quarter.

The company must also experiment with IPTV to see if the service via copper phone wires can match the transmission quality over its own cables.

Meanwhile, BT has expanded in the other direction. Its subscription-free Vision service, offering downloadable films and Premiership football, has signed up 100,000 customers so far.

Virgin’s hold-up is bad news for C&W, which regards it as an anchor tenant for its local loop unbundling business that has installed its own equipment to run phone lines from BT’s exchanges.

The division is left over from its Bulldog internet arm, whose retail customers were sold on to Pipex. Sales fell to £13m from £29m in the last six months, reflecting boss John Pluthero’s decision to switch to a wholesale model.

Broadband customers signed up to Virgin.net, currently carried on BT’s network, will be transferred to C&W in early 2008.

This week Virgin launches its jointly owned channel, Setanta Sports News, which will compete with Sky Sports News.

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