At the press conference to announce the merger of Virgin Mobile with NTL last year, Sir Richard Branson brandished a red pen and scrawled on the rather dull presentation that the deal was all about 4-play. While on the surface his graffiti was an attempt to inject a bit of spice into an otherwise dull meeting of suits, it also underlined the idea behind the deal: that Virgin Media would be a one-stop content provider across TV, the web and mobile.
Until now, however, there has been little evidence that 4-play has got anyone excited. Virgin's customer growth has stagnated while the cable TV operation has become bogged down in a spat with Sky over the provision of the satellite broadcaster's basic channels.
But confirmation that Virgin Media is taking up the sponsorship of Big Brother, dropped by Carphone Warehouse after the Celebrity race row, offers the company the perfect opportunity to prove that multi-platform content can work.
When mobile phone company O2 sponsored the first few Big Brother series it produced a host of mobile content such as wallpapers and news from the house.
Since then, mobile handsets have evolved: many can deal with video and access the internet, paving the way for similar content to be accessed through both mobiles and PCs.
Virgin also has a mobile phone in the market which can receive live TV transmissions, and plans to launch more TV handsets later this year.
The question is, however, whether Channel 4 and Endemol will allow Virgin Media to use Big Brother as a showcase or just pocket Branson's cash while they continue to work on their own digital plans for the show.
