Reducing costs

[philaustin]

I want to do the same, reduce cost. When Virgin increase my bill by £8.50 in a few weeks it’ll be costing me £121 a month! This is ridiculous. Of all the TV channels there are only a few I want to watch; mainly factual / science/ history / documentary and GB News. I dont have time for the bbc any more - woke left wing rubbish. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime, and can find the odd movie or two. My TV is an LG OLED with freeview but it needs an aerial to watch. I dont have an aerial. I’m thinking of scrapping the TV package or reducing it to a much simpler, cheaper one. The problem I have is with Customer Support understanding my requirements. The operator seemed to be in a bus station somewhere in Asia or the Caribbean talking through a tin can on a piece of string. We couldnt understand each other. How am I supposed to make a change to my package (or even cancel it completely) with this customer / provider system?

[philaustin]

I’m in a similar situation. When the price increase is added my bill will be £121 a month for phone, TV and Broadband. I feel I’m being taken for a mug. I’m only interested in factual tv programmes, the news (GB News not woke bbc),  Ben Fogal, Steve Backshall,  that kind of stuff. I call them ‘TV for the intelligent’. No soaps, no ‘celebrities’, no islands, or vain people. My other half likes anything to do with antiques or doing up old stuff .  She laughs at ‘catchphrase’ which I think is awful.  Most programs are repeats, We find films on Netflix and Amazon Prime ( the old Top Gear team are good with their funny adventures, as us Clarkson’s Farm!). I dont think I need  Virgin to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime because we pay subscriptions to those. The problem is, trying to get just the programmes we want without having to pay for all the rubbish the morons out there want to watch. 

[philaustin]

Having failed to successfully communicate with ‘customer services’ I’ve tried their ‘message us’ option on the web site. Tried yesterday and after a very long time I gave up. I’m trying again now. Been talking to someone called ‘bot’ for an hour and he/she says I have to keep waiting until someone else is available. They are experiencing an unusual number of calls. This is not surprising. I bet everyone it trying to cancel their Virgin whilst they can do it without incurring a hefty cancellation fee. Does anyone have any recommendations for better alternatives to Virgin please?

[squillian]

Much I would agree with there, but we will have to agree to disagree about the BBC. I find them much too right wing and seeming to agree with all the rubbish that this current government comes out with, simply leaving out anything they wouldn't like. The BBC is after all run by a boss appointed by a right-wing government and who is well known to be a Tory donor. GB News I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole. None of our current news media is unbiased, but I find Channel Four is probably about the best of them. I don't want any political slant on the news, right or left, I just want to know what's going on.

I am seriously thinking of giving up on Virgin TV because of the cost and the fact that I am paying for goodness knows how many channels I will never watch. I get most of them on Freeview anyway. The main channels I would miss are Discovery Channel and National Geographic, as I enjoy the documentaries on them. I haven't watched Top Gear since Jeremy Clarkson & Co went, I just watch them on Amazon Prime these days as my wife has a subscription. Soaps I never watch, and the same goes for so-called "reality shows". I'm not really into game shows either, although I did used to like some of them when I was much younger. I'm retired now though and they have lost their appeal.

[newapollo]

VM only have two TV tiers now, Mixit and Maxit - shown in colums 5 and 6 on the following page

ChannelGuide_Jan_22.pdf 

The Mixit tier is on a par with Freeview with a few extra channels. You can add selected channels by taking out a Personal Pick which are grouped into Entertainment & Drama, Entertainment & Documentaries, Entertainment & Lifestyle, Entertainment & Sport Lite and Kids categories.

The Personal Pick selections are shown <<< Here >>> 

The Kids Personal Pick is £5 a month.  With the other Personal Picks, the first one you add is an extra £7 a month, any additional ones are £5 a month. You can cancel Personal Picks at any time by giving 30 days notice. It won't affect your contract or any discounts you may have.

If cancelling the VM TV it may be worth taking out a subscription to Disney + alongside Discovery + to watch documentary content (there have been various postings elsewhere suggesting that Disney is closing down the National Geographic UK linear channel on 1st February 2022 at 5am) 

If you don't have an external aeriel for terrestrial TV then an indoor aeriel may suffice at a lot lower cost  depending on the signal levels in your area.

If going for terrestrial TV it may also be an idea to buy a Freeview set top box to facilitate recordings

[squillian]

I think this is a fairly good area for signal strength, I already have a TV in the bedroom that is on Freeview and that works just fine. The TV I have downstairs is an internet connected one which could easily be connected to the same aerial that the upstairs one is on. The aerial is in the loft and there is a splitter up there which takes it to the socket in the bedroom and the socket downstairs, so all I would have to do to get Freeview downstairs is make up a short connecting cable to go from the wall socket to the TV. I probably already have the plugs and cable in my shed. All I have to do is work out how to get Discovery and National Geographic and I will cancel my Virgin TV subscription. I will have to buy a Freeview recorder but at least that's a one-off not a monthly subscription.

I certainly have no intention of changing my Virgin TV contract, I can't see any point. If I change my contract at all it will simply be to remove the TV part of my package as that is the bit where I don't consider I am getting good value for money. The rest is fine.

[philaustin]

I disagree about the BBC. They are anti government. In the absence of a viable opposition they appear to have stepped in for Labour.  Many of their programs are extremely woke, politically correct to the point of being sickening. I’m not going into detail as it might offend gay people, ethnic minorities or disabled people. The BBC were anti Brexit even after a majority of the public had voted Brexit, delighting in every comedy programme, stand up comedian deriding Brexit voters. Champagne Socialists is a great description.

[squillian]

Sorry, but as I said we will have to agree to disagree on that issue. All I see of the BBC is them backing every half-baked idea that this government comes out with and conveniently leaving out anything the government clearly doesn't want broadcast. If you consider that to be "left-wing" then we are poles-apart on this and will most certainly never agree so I just suggest we drop the subject.

My main concern is not a political one anyway. All I am concerned about is the spiralling costs of Virgin's TV and the inability to pay for only what I want to receive and nothing else. I just want the normal terrestrial channels plus a few specific others, mainly documentary and scientific ones like Discovery and Nat Geographic. Unfortunately with Virgin, and probably other suppliers too, in order to get 2 or 3 that I want I have to sign up to, and pay for, dozens of others that I will never watch. That is what I find anyway. Most of what I really want to watch is available on Freeview which is as its name implies, Free, so why am I having to pay for stuff I don't want?