Virgin Media Prices going UP again

[m419]

So when your box breaks down after warranty your willing to pay for a new one or take out insurance, all that hassle just to recieve channels which show poor range of programmes.

I'm actually tired of all Digital TV channels showing constant repeats, after all the money broadcasters make through advertising and money direct from us,they could at least put some fresh content on!

The worst:

Sky Real Lives:

Constant repeats of Airline from ITV dating back to 1999, they have already been repeated on ITV2!

Coach trip

Virgin 1:

My wife and kids which has been circulating on Trouble since 1997
Who wants to be a millionaire

Animal Planet:

Pet Rescue
Animal cops phoenix



The whole damn line ups on Challenge,G.O.L.D,Dave,Discovery travel and living,ITV3 and a few more.

And then the worst is Sky Movies, Sky charge us between £16 and £19.50 for these channels on top of our regular Sky/Virgin/Tiscali TV subscription TV service and they just show the same movies week after week, repeats,repeats and more repeats. And the daytime selection is hiddeous! It gets better, they even have Advertisements on these channels even though they charge us a fortune just to watch them. They are making a mint out of us!

[jungleguy]

haven't BT and Talk Talk also put their prices up too?

[neilo]

So if you are on the VIP package, don't you have to pay the 50p more for having an additional set top box? Or is it just those of us who are not VIPs? Think my bill is going up by £2.99. Maybe Ofcom's new premium channel pricing structure might help me recoup that, if they follow through.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

There are several things wrong with this whole idea of an increase.

Customers wouldn't mind paying the increase if VM stopped meddling with channels, and increased the services.

With Sky, we pay a two pound increase each year and we get every channel going, and the oppotunity to get channels that are not even in your area, ie l live in London, but can get STV, Channel Island TV, and more, you don't get with VM do you.

[Ignitionnet]

There is absolutely no relevance between whatever Sky offer and VM's price rises. Just because Sky offer localised content everywhere (due to their delivery system) doesn't make price rises any more or less acceptable.

Sky increase their prices due to content cost increases, these increases also affect Virgin. Simples.

[lawe]

I think for what I pay in total, I get a good deal.
Yes I wish Discovery was in HD but the VOD is worth every penny.

[Hiroki]

Really? I don't get VOD but when I look at it at friends houses the content always looks really poor.

[lawe]

Depends what your after. I know it has saved us after either the start or finish has not been recorded or when sport has overun but they have not updated the time code for the V+ to kick in.
Also it's nice sometimes to watch something you've not seen in a while, like Spaced for example.

[Gary L]

It just proves that they do it for a reason.

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[newbie1001]

You got ESPN and extra HD channels did you expect them to be free. If you want Virgin to move into the HD age it is gonna cost and the subscriber will have to pay for it. Surprised with the line rental increase though especially with all the 3rd party providers on BT now. Roll on March and o2s £9.50.

[Cablefan]

The phone product is just so uncompetitive. £7.95 for anytime calls on top of £12 line rental is just totally out of step with the market. They really need to reduce the cost of XL to £5 for any hope of being competitive with BT or SKY, not to mention the cheapo telco options.

[m419]

Yes but these cheap phone companies disappear and a larger rival takes over and whacks up the prices.

Example:

TalkTalk took over Tiscali UK, they are now putting up prices.

Other companies taken over by TalkTalk:

One Tel
Tele2 UK
Toucan
Tiscali including Bulldog

These smaller firms just piggyback firms like Cable and Wireless and depend on BT's network, they may charge less but never make any money, its done on purpose, its not as if BT want competiton now is it?

But I like I said before BT's standard phone prices are slowly creeping up next to Virgin Media's, like the call connection charge for chargeable calls is now 9p, Virgin Media's connection charge is 9.76p, hardly a big difference there really.

And the free calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers, waste of time, most companies are now migrating to 0844,0843 and 0871 numbers in order to get revenue share.

Some of the companies which have now migrated:

Traveline: Now uses 0871 numbers
National Express: Now uses 0871 numbers
Hutchison 3G: Now uses 0843 numbers
Ofcom: Now uses an 03 number and 020 number
Sky: Now uses 0844 numbers

Since revenue share has stopped, isn't it fair all these phone companies passed on the savings?

[Ignitionnet]

Have you considered a career in VM sales m419, you always appear to have a sales pitch / anti-the competition post in threads like this?

You also neatly skipped around the big price difference between the respective unlimited calls packages - well done on that one

Dumping VM's telco and TV will increase my overall costs marginally due to the bundled discounts. This is more than offset however by knowing that:

A) I've a second broadband circuit available for when the 50M fails - no need to go into the office or work off tethered cell phone.
B) I'll show up in the churn figures. Well deserved for the stubborn resistance to fixing the long standing issues here properly.
C) The crazy peeps at O2 are giving me a ton of cash back making the service virtually free for a year

EDIT: Incidentally the stuff about operators piggybacking on BT's network and BT not wanting the competition is tosh. Of course BT don't want it but Ofcom say they've no choice in the matter and it's Ofcom who decide how much BT can charge for access. It's less than 90GBP/year to use a BT line for both voice and DSL, hardly anti-competitive in the context of BT's own line rental charge.

VM know their telco service is a rip off that's why they basically give the line rental away free with HSI

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

Have you considered a career in VM sales m419, you always appear to have a sales pitch / anti-the competition post in threads like this?

You also neatly skipped around the big price difference between the respective unlimited calls packages - well done on that one

Dumping VM'ss telco and TV will increase my overall costs marginally due to the bundled discounts. This is more than offset however by knowing that:

A) I've a second broadband circuit available for when the 50M fails - no need to go into the office or work off tethered cell phone.
B) I'll show up in the churn figures. Well deserved for the stubborn resistance to fixing the long standing issues here properly.
C) The crazy peeps at O2 are giving me a ton of cash back making the service virtually free for a year

EDIT: Incidentally the stuff about operators piggybacking onBT'ss network and BT not wanting the competition is tosh. Of course BT don't want it butOfcomm say they've no choice in the matter and it'sOfcomm who decide how much BT can charge for access. It's less than 90GBP/year to use a BT line for both voice and DSL, hardly anti-competitive in the context ofBT'ss own line rental charge.

To be honest i have more to worry about than VM's price rise, Its small in comparison with some of my other bills and there price hikes. Oh and before the usual suspects say "but your staff" the price rise to phone calls, movies and sport hit me as well.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Sirius

To be honest i have more to worry about than VM's price rise, Its small in comparison with some off my other bills and there price hikes. Oh and before the usual suspects say "but your staff" the price rise to phone calls and movies and sport hit me as well.

Totally agree and my first post commented on how uninteresting it was. I was more amused by the sales pitch in the post above. VM do not and haven't for years attempted to compete on call costs so to say that they somehow are competitive is absurd. They give the phone line away as a freebie to most packages for a good reason

I just shrug when I get my yearly Sky increase along with everyone else. Everything increases in price, if it gets too expensive you just don't have it, simples really.

---------- Post added at 11:30 ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 ----------

Originally Posted by Gary L

It just proves that they do it for a reason.

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Well yes of course they do it for a reason. They don't just throw a dartboard at the price list Gary what's your point?

They want the ex-M tier gone and want to try and make a touch more money out of broadband / HSI, it is the main thing bringing in the readies at the moment though it's also the most expensive one to maintain.

Ooooh 4000 posts.