Westminster Cable Co Ltd has started the market trial of its video-on-demand services in London (CI No 2,390). It expects to make an announcement of its first results in a couple of months. It concluded its technical trial at the end of the summer and, according to the British Telecommunications Plc-owned company, it was very pleased with the enormous reliability of the technology. It is keeping the 100 testers of the technical trial on board and now has sales staff selling the service to up to 1,000 subscribers to take part in the marketing trial. The trial is scheduled to last six months with customers paying around $6 for movies that are less than a year old, down to $1.50 for older content. Content has been increased to 400 from 100 hours. There is no additional monthly charge as participants already pay a monthly cable subscription fee to Westminster Cable. If we can make money from it after the trial period we will offer it commercially, the company said. The service has a potential audience of 80,000 on its switched star network within its franchise.
