Olympic athletes help Virgin Media to strike gold

Virgin Media has got a double boost from record TV viewing during the Olympics and the decision to recruit top athletes such as Mo Farah and Usain Bolt (pictured above) in its advertising.

The number of subscribers now taking super-fast broadband of 30Mb or higher is 1.8 million, up 453,000 in the quarter.

An extra 206,000 also signed up to TiVo, Virgin's premium pay-TV service that allows viewers to search and recommend shows, taking total TiVo users to 1.14 million.

Virgin swung to a pre-tax profit of £124m in the quarter against a £74m loss a year ago, with sales up 2.8 per cent to £1.03bn.