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

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Dave42

yes but that's 3 price rises in a year again February then June sky sports one and now this and it getting common now

Not really VMs doing. Sky and BT caused them.

[alwaysabear]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Not really VMs doing. Sky and BT caused them.

What about the £4.50 rise in February or are you going to blame that on somebody else. Inflation busting rise in any bodies book.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by alwaysabear

What about the £4.50 rise in February or are you going to blame that on somebody else. Inflation busting rise in any bodies book.

Well three were mentioned but I only gave reasons for two so one VM price rise a year is ok IMO.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Its not just BT Sport Europe though. There are two other HD channels coming as well and probably more.

£3 is a small amout compared to what BT and Sky customers have had to pay, so chances are yes a few people will cancel but VM may ultimately get more customers signing up.

How anyone can defend non sports fans partly funding Premium sports channels, from a fairness perspective, is beyond me.

The key word here being Premium.

[Horizon]

£4.50 + £3 = too bloody much of a hike within six months.

[batchain]

Originally Posted by passingbat

How anyone can defend non sports fans partly funding Premium sports channels, from a fairness perspective, is beyond me.

Without Setanta, ESPN and now BT Sport the cost of XL would most likely be even higher, as would broadband & phone. It's only fair that non-sports fans now pay their fair share since the hundreds of thousands that either upgraded their TV from M/M+ to XL or switched all services to Virgin to get inclusive sports have been subsidising everyone else's viewing habits for the past few years.

The key word here being Premium.

The key word is competitive; Sky is, BT is and if Virgin wants to maintain its market lead, it will need to continue to be so.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by batchain

Without Setanta, ESPN and now BT Sport the cost of XL would most likely be even higher, as would broadband & phone. It's only fair that non-sports fans now pay their fair share since the hundreds of thousands that either upgraded their TV from M/M+ to XL or switched all services to Virgin to get inclusive sports have been subsidising everyone else's viewing habits for the past few years.

.

Strange how Sky can offer a package of all the pay TV channels, without having to add free premium sports.

Are VM's management a bit thick compared to Sky's management then?

[Chad]

Originally Posted by passingbat

Strange how Sky can offer a package of all the pay TV channels, without having to add free premium sports.

Are VM's management a bit thick compared to Sky's management then?

I've always wondered how valuable adding Setanta, ESPN and finally BT Sports to the XL package has really been to Virgin Media over the years. I've never seen any facts or figures to show how many customers upgraded their package from M+ or L over the years to XL to get "free" sports. One thing I do know however is Virgin have been pretty much stagnant during the "free" sports years.

In 2007, before adding Setanta Sports to XL, Virgin Media had 3,600,000 TV customers. Today they have just short of 3,800,000. 200,000 additions in 8 years.

During the same period SKY had 8,200,000 TV customers in 2007. Their now sitting at 10,300,000. Just over 2 million additions. Nearly 11,000,000 if you add NOW TV customers.

BT launched their TV service in December 2006 and now have 1,100,000 TV customers whilst Talk Talk have only been going for a few years with 1,400,000 TV customers.

So during the "free" sports years Virgins competition have added 4,500,000 new TV customers whilst Virgin have added virtually nil in comparison.

It looks like "free" sport has been a great retention tool for Virgin, and a great up-selling feature for existing customers, but it's hardly been a game changer.

I agree with others that Virgin maybe need a new XL package option without BT Sports. The things is the current XL package is actually priced very competitively. With the £3 increase XL with TiVo will be £36.00 per month. SKY's Family Bundle with SKY+ is the exact same price. If Virgin offered XL, minus BT Sport, for about £25.00 per month I'm sure they'd attract the crowd who are looking for great TV at a value price.

Maybe a coincidence but have just added SKY Sports for the Cricket for a couple of months, my bill how shows my package to be Big Kahuna Sports bundle as they lumped SKY sports into it, how odd! Does this bundle normally exist as an option?

[Dave42]

Originally Posted by mhatter67

Maybe a coincidence but have just added SKY Sports for the Cricket for a couple of months, my bill how shows my package to be Big Kahuna Sports bundle as they lumped SKY sports into it, how odd! Does this bundle normally exist as an option?

yes

[denphone]

Well l would be lying if l said l did not like my football but its certainly pretty unfair on those XL pack subscribers who don't like their sport as they are paying a extra £3 and getting nowt for it.

[Gavin-D]

Line rental is going up by £1 as well

If you have a Virgin Media phone line and have a short-term promotional offer on line rental, your price change includes a line rental increase of £1.00. However, you will not receive the line rental increase until the end of your short-term promotional offer. This date can be found on your bill.

https://my.virginmedia.com/customer-...-an-offer.html - click on short term promotional offers on line rental

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Gavin-D

Line rental is going up by £1 as well

If you have a Virgin Media phone line and have a short-term promotional offer on line rental, your price change includes a line rental increase of £1.00. However, you will not receive the line rental increase until the end of your short-term promotional offer. This date can be found on your bill.

https://my.virginmedia.com/customer-...-an-offer.html - click on short term promotional offers on line rental

I'm pretty sure that is referring to from the price change earlier this year - where the line rental went up by £1.

Anyone who had a line rental offer from before that change won't experience that increase until the offer ends.

[Dave42]

might be time to think about cancelling not long in to new contract too but price rise still let you out don't it

[Joedm45]

It does appear that these price rises are becoming too frequent, you have to expect a rise every year and I accept that with every company you pay for a service the price will go up.

With VM it used to be an annual rise in February (they even used to break it down between Tel, BB and TV) and an annual rise in Sept/Oct if you sub to Sky premium channels.
Is it sad to live in hope that this will happen once more????