Virgin Media Community

[km-tooting]

Am paying for Netflix on top of my "bigger bundle" Virgin TV package. Woeful lack of content on Virgin in my opinion and rarely updated. After the initial offer period, my package has risen from £63pm to £78pm with a price increase of £4pm arriving in March 2021. Virgin is now far away my biggest monthly outlay and I'm not certain that it is value for money. Freesat and then pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime etc?

[km-tooting]

Biggest outlay after Council Tax, I meant to say.

[japitts · Accepted solution]

Virgin is only a TV platform provider, they can only broadcast the content that broadcasters want to show. And I can think of a couple of high-profile BBC series, to quote one example, that haven't been produced this year because of the Covid pandemic.

Some broadcasters have taken to showing a few US & Canadian imported-shows the past few months, to compensate for the lack of UK-ones. You only have to look over the FTA-channels for the next couple of weeks, to see more than a regular sprinkling of repeat episodes.

You might like to take this oppportunity to do an audit of which TV channels you watch and want to pay for, and see if your current TV bundle still suits your requirements - then get some sample prices using build my bundle 

[km-tooting]

I appreciate that Virgin TV is merely a platform provider but it is a costly platform. 

[japitts]

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@km-tooting wrote:

I appreciate that Virgin TV is merely a platform provider but it is a costly platform. 

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Compared with what or whom?

[Jomodu]

Quite an easy exercise to do. One I did before Christmas. You need to assess if you need to pay for an outdoor aerial to receive all Freeview stations OK. The. Add the cost of a set up box to record any programmes/series you want to see later. Then add costs of any streaming services eg Amazon Prime, Netflix etc. Plus broadband costs and landline yearly costs.

I added this up spreading the cost of equipment needed over, say 5 years to get an average yearly budget. I compared this with receiving a compatible bungle from VM. Then you have to factor in whether you want to bother with the upheaval (yes). Or, perhaps change service provider every year or so to get the new customer discount.

Pretty easy to do. The problem asking others for their opinions on a forum is that only you know what you want/prepared to do etc.

My research was positive.....but I then got a healthy discount (20 years with NTL/VM) . So, will do the same exercise next year to assess if savings are worth the upheaval.

[japitts]

And if you're on a high TV tier with VM, consider dropping to Mix it (broadly comparable to Freeview) with any personal picks as appropriate.

TiVo/V6 is an excellent multi-channel recording box, so also revisit whether you need the facilities or if a simple Freeview PVR would suffice. Only you can decide.