It’s already built up a regular audience of 3.5 million people for its VOD service, now it’s decided to start monetising those views - Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) is to show adverts before and after programmes on its the offering in a three-month trial starting this week in north London. Release

For the moment only Virgin Media, Channel 4 and Warner Bros shows will get the ads, from brands like Kellogg’s and O2, which will be inserted in real-time before and after something is watched. C4 will also want a slice of the pie; Channel 4 Agency Sales and IDS are arranging the advertising space with the brands. It remains to be seen what sort of commercial split Virgin and Channel 4 have hammered out.

Virgin claims 45 million VOD views in August, an increase on the 34 million it got in January, and 314 million views for the year—due in no small part to the addition of the BBC’s iPlayer to the service in May.

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