Which TV-viewing animal are you?

Have you met Ed yet? You know the one – he’s tall, dark and…furry.

Ed’s a Sofa Bear, and like all Sofa Bears, he loves kicking back in front of the telly after a busy week. You may have seen him in one of our new TV ads, watching his favourite movies and Box Sets from the selection available on Virgin Media on Virgin Movies, Sky Movies and Netflix.

You might already know a Sofa Bear or two yourself. It turns out there are quite a few of them out there – in fact, as many as 40% of the TV-viewing public have Sofa Bear-like tendencies1.

But Sofa Bears aren’t the only type of TV viewers out there. Take Ally the Night Owl, for example, who we’re excited to introduce as the star of our latest TV ad, who made her on-screen debut over the weekend.

Ally is a self-confessed Box Set fan who loves getting caught up in a series. She often stays up late into the night as she can’t resist watching ‘just one more’ episode while tucked up in bed. Sound familiar? Thought so. More than one in ten people are TV Night Owls1, so it’s likely you either have trouble tearing yourself away from your favourite Box Set or know someone who does.

With advanced set-top boxes like Virgin Media’s TiVo enabling so many ways for customers like Ally and Ed to watch their favourite shows, lots of different telly-watching types have evolved. In addition to Sofa Bears and Night Owls, we’ve identified a few other species in the UK’s TV-viewing habitat:

• Content Squirrellers: Know exactly what they want to watch and never miss an episode by recording all their favourite shows to watch whenever they want
• Remote Controllers: Always seem to have the remote control to hand and love flicking through their favourite shows
• Screen Jugglers: Are seriously good at multi-tasking and regularly juggle content across multiple devices

If any of these descriptions sound familiar, you’re not alone! Research shows2 the majority of Brits not only recognise some of these telly-watching traits in themselves, but also in the people they live with – with a quarter claiming to live with a Remote Controller.

You can find out which TV-viewing animal you are by taking our quiz here.

To enjoy the great range of movies and Box Sets like Ally and Ed, Virgin Media customers can get Sky Movies and access to Virgin Movies from £50 a month, now with Netflix included for six months, on the ‘Big Kahuna Mobiles’ bundle3.



1 According to the latest results of our ‘Which animal are you’ quiz, which you can take here.

2 This figure is from a OnePoll survey of 2,000 British TV viewers carried out in September 2014.

3 Virgin Media’s Big Kahuna Movies bundle is currently available on an 18 month contract from £50 for the first 12 months, then from £63.50 thereafter, now with Netflix included for six months.