NICE work if you can get it.

The two top men at troubled Hampshire cable giant Virgin Media banked nearly £5m between them so far this year, it has emerged.

Just weeks after the chief executive quit with a £3.

6m payoff, the chairman of Virgin Media has been given a bumper £1.

3m bonus.

The share award is just the latest payout for Jim Mooney, who has earned more than £6m in a little over four years.

The scale of the bonus will stun staff and customers of the company, a major regional employer, who have watched the company lurch through a succession of public relations and business disasters.

Former chief executive Steve Burch left in August with £3.

6m for a turbulent 18 months in charge during which time he and fellow American Mr Mooney oversaw a bruising row with rival Sky, a botched bid to take over ITV and an aborted sale of the company.

Yet official documents from Virgin say Mr Mooney's latest bonus is due because he hit 91 per cent of his performance targets, entitling him to cash in on stock options worth £1.

3m at current prices.

A Virgin Media worker, who did not want to be named, said: "The company is not doing well.

There have been a number of unfortunate decisions and plans that didn't come to fruition.

So why should someone get that degree of reward?" On top of his bonus Mr Burch already owned Virgin shares worth about £1.

6m from a payment earlier this year.

Last July Mr Mooney was also awarded 125,000 performance shares when Hookbased NTL formally acquired Virgin Mobile to become Virgin Media.

Shortly after that payout, viewers voted with their feet when a dispute with Sky saw top TV shows such as Lost and The Simpsons disappear from Virgin viewers' screens.

More than 70,000 left in April, May and June this year.

The exodus of subscribers took the shine off a £25m re-launch of the business under the Virgin Media brand.

Then an audacious move to buy ITV was also torpedoed by satellite rival Sky.

And earlier this year plans for an £11 billion sale of the business were sunk by stock market turmoil.

Virgin boss Richard Branson, a major shareholder in Virgin Media, yesterday confirmed the sale of his Virgin Megastores chain.

The buyout will see all the stores renamed Zawi.