General : £3 TV increase but BT Sport Europe is "free"

[tassiekev]

Just received this (anyone else had it?):

What do you think of your products and price rises?
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22:14 (6 minutes ago)

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Hello!

This is a survey from Virgin Media about the products you have with us and your views on price rises.

The questionnaire will take about 10 minutes to complete.

Your feedback will help us understand more about customers’ perceptions of price increases, and their impact.

As part of the project we are running a free draw for £300 worth of Amazon vouchers. *Terms & Conditions can be viewed by following the appropriate link at the bottom of this email.

eDigitalResearch is an independent market research company that Virgin Media have asked to run this survey. All the data we collect is stored on a secure server and is covered by the eDigitalResearch Privacy Policy.

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Thanks again for your help!

The Virgin Media team

[harry_hitch]

Originally Posted by tassiekev

Just received this (anyone else had it?):

What do you think of your products and price rises?
Inbox
x

Virgin Media & eDigitalResearch <VirginMediaSurveys@edigitalresearch.com> Unsubscribe
22:14 (6 minutes ago)

to me
Logo
Hello!

This is a survey from Virgin Media about the products you have with us and your views on price rises.

The questionnaire will take about 10 minutes to complete.

Your feedback will help us understand more about customers’ perceptions of price increases, and their impact.

As part of the project we are running a free draw for £300 worth of Amazon vouchers. *Terms & Conditions can be viewed by following the appropriate link at the bottom of this email.

eDigitalResearch is an independent market research company that Virgin Media have asked to run this survey. All the data we collect is stored on a secure server and is covered by the eDigitalResearch Privacy Policy.

If you’d like to take part just click below to get started.

Click here to go to the survey.

If this link does not work, please copy and paste it into your web browser.

Thanks again for your help!

The Virgin Media team

Interesting. I imagine they have had plenty of complaints. I still remember the questionnaires I got some time ago, am sure it was before BT announced they nabbed rights to CL. There was talk of a £3 increase in the questionnaires way back then, and I can only suspect VM decided to ditch any plans that may (or may not) of come out of the questionnaire results, when the news about BT sports and the CL came out. Quite why they decided to chase the CL football is beyond me. Even as a sports fan, it was a poor decision by VM.

Edit: Have you filled it in yet? Was there anything interesting in the questionnaire?

[tassiekev]

I filled it in, gave Tivo a big serve - lack of apps, slow, poor box set choice (which are difficult to find unless you want to go through all those menus) etc.etc. They asked what I watched and this (the questioning) was very slewed towards sport. Asked if I intended to do anything about the price increase, said I already had, combo of BT+Sky.

Got the idea they're a bit concerned about cancellations. To add insult to injury, my BB was down again first thing - no phone, no TV. Rang to see what was happening & the recorded message said they were improving the services - I checked the calendar but it's August not April. 4th time in a fortnight I've lost all services, came back on this afternoon. August 21 is my changeover date - can't wait.

EDIT: Don't think I'll be winning any prizes in the big draw.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by tassiekev

I filled it in, gave Tivo a big serve - lack of apps, slow, poor box set choice (which are difficult to find unless you want to go through all those menus) etc.etc. They asked what I watched and this (the questioning) was very slewed towards sport. Asked if I intended to do anything about the price increase, said I already had, combo of BT+Sky.

Got the idea they're a bit concerned about cancellations. To add insult to injury, my BB was down again first thing - no phone, no TV. Rang to see what was happening & the recorded message said they were improving the services - I checked the calendar but it's August not April. 4th time in a fortnight I've lost all services, came back on this afternoon. August 21 is my changeover date - can't wait.

EDIT: Don't think I'll be winning any prizes in the big draw.

1 of my mates joined SKY this week. He's had Telewest / Virgin Media for nearly 20 years. Said it was getting too expensive and little fight from Virgin to keep his custom when he called to cancel. Paying half of what he was for almost the same package, but admittedly his broadband is much slower.

Not looking good for Virgin on the TV front. Latest results show they've lost 19,000 TV customers in UK and Ireland. I think Virgin are the only TV provider in the UK to have virtually no growth, in terms of TV subscription numbers, in the past 5 years. In fact I think Virgin, in the UK, have had about the same numbers of subscribers for nearly 8 years.

[harry_hitch]

Originally Posted by tassiekev

I filled it in, gave Tivo a big serve - lack of apps, slow, poor box set choice (which are difficult to find unless you want to go through all those menus) etc.etc. They asked what I watched and this (the questioning) was very slewed towards sport. Asked if I intended to do anything about the price increase, said I already had, combo of BT+Sky.

Got the idea they're a bit concerned about cancellations. To add insult to injury, my BB was down again first thing - no phone, no TV. Rang to see what was happening & the recorded message said they were improving the services - I checked the calendar but it's August not April. 4th time in a fortnight I've lost all services, came back on this afternoon. August 21 is my changeover date - can't wait.

EDIT: Don't think I'll be winning any prizes in the big draw.

Cheers tassiekev, difficult times ahead for VM HQ, me thinks.

[Gavin-D]

I never get these surveys anyone do this happen to anyone else

[telegramsam]

Originally Posted by Gavin-D

I never get these surveys anyone do this happen to anyone else

Yes Iget them now and then.

[Superblade7]

Originally Posted by Chad

1 of my mates joined SKY this week. He's had Telewest / Virgin Media for nearly 20 years. Said it was getting too expensive and little fight from Virgin to keep his custom when he called to cancel. Paying half of what he was for almost the same package, but admittedly his broadband is much slower.

Not looking good for Virgin on the TV front. Latest results show they've lost 19,000 TV customers in UK and Ireland. I think Virgin are the only TV provider in the UK to have virtually no growth, in terms of TV subscription numbers, in the past 5 years. In fact I think Virgin, in the UK, have had about the same numbers of subscribers for nearly 8 years.

I know when I cancelled my TV in June they just accepted it and didn't try anything to keep my custom. Even the outbound retentions call said he understood Sky had some great deals at the moment but hoped I'd consider them again in the future.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by harry_hitch

Cheers tassiekev, difficult times ahead for VM HQ, me thinks.

Many have said that in the past but they are still here and making more money then they did before Harry.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by harry_hitch

Cheers tassiekev, difficult times ahead for VM HQ, me thinks.

The answer is within their own hands. If they read these forums, they should have a pretty good idea of what they need to do.

They need to go about sorting these problems as a matter of urgency rather than being so laid back about it all. They will start losing customers at an alarming rate if they carry on like this.

Such a shame, they were starting to do so well last year but now seem to have gone into reverse. They are taking their eye off the ball in this fast paced game.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Chad

Latest results show they've lost 19,000 TV customers in UK and Ireland. I think Virgin are the only TV provider in the UK to have virtually no growth, in terms of TV subscription numbers, in the past 5 years. In fact I think Virgin, in the UK, have had about the same numbers of subscribers for nearly 8 years.

In fairnesss, I think Sky have been losing susbscribers to their satellite platform too but they have more than compensated with their Now TV service. Sky does not split out satellite from Now TV subscribers so this is hard to determine. However, the deals that Sky are offering now seem to show that they need the business.
I think they whole market has shifted over the last few years. The differentiators that cable had over terrestial TV - multiple channels, pay movies, catch-up services, on-demand box sets have been staedily narrowed. If you cancelled cable TV in the past you could lose all these services and just have five channels. With YouView and apps the difference is a lot narrower.
I think VM and Sky will continue to come under attack from the likes of BT and TalkTalk. I think VM's investment in a bigger network is a sensible step forward.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

The answer is within their own hands. If they read these forums, they should have a pretty good idea of what they need to do.

.

But some of the things that you want them to do are not solely in their hands; e.g. Now TV, Amazon and HBO content. VM can't force the owners of these services onto the Tivo platform. And in the case of some of them, it may not be in VM's best interest.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by passingbat

But some of the things that you want them to do are not solely in their hands; e.g. Now TV, Amazon and HBO content. VM can't force the owners of these services onto the Tivo platform. And in the case of some of them, it may not be in VM's best interest.

It surely must be in Virgin Media's interests to have a good choice of streaming services on an updated TIVO. It would be the only solution (at the moment) for those viewers who want maximum content options available on one box. Most people would be absolutely delighted with this.

If that became part of VM'S strategy, I have no doubt at all that deals could be done.

If TV manufacturers can do it, so can Virgin. With a well thought out strategy, VM could make money, not lose money from this.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

If TV manufacturers can do it, so can Virgin. With a well thought out strategy, VM could make money, not lose money from this.

But VM is not a TV manufacturer. The reason that TV manufacturers can do it is that they make money from selling TVs whereas VM makes it from selling services. That's a bit like asking PVR manufacturers to just charge £50 because Sky is able to do this. Different business models. And as an aside, TV manufacturers apart from the Koreans aren't making money these days. Companies like Sharp, Toshiba, Philips, Hitachi and JVC have all licensed their brands to other companies whilst Sony and Panasonic have scaled back their loss-making TV arms.
I rule out Now TV coming to VM as it's too much of a substitute for VM's own TV service. I don't rule out Amazon Prime. Nor do I rule out apps like Curzon Home Cinema and TED Talks which are available elsewhere and complement not cannibalise VM's existing content offerings.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

It surely must be in Virgin Media's interests to have a good choice of streaming services on an updated TIVO. .

No one is arguing that; but, if the other parties don't want to play ball, what can VM do? Also, some services may not be in VM's interest. With more people cord cutting, there could be a sizeable number of people deciding to cut TV to M and use the online services.

At the time of the Netflix addition, cord cutting was a relatively unknown term in the UK. And although it is more well known now, it is probably far from being on the 'to do' list of the vast majority of people, So services such as Amazon may arrive on Tivo. But VM must be looking at future trends in these decisions and trying to estimate the growth rate of those that will cut the cord and at what point in the future, that number will be significant enough to affect it's pay TV offering.