Virgin TV Packages
If you want to get cable TV the best way to get it is bundled with (definitely) phone and (probably) broadband, and there are two levels of choice to be made here. Virgin TV packages come in M+, L and XL – you need to decide which one suits you best – and then the bundles are made up of your chosen TV package plus phone and broadband – so you need to pick the right bundle. A Virgin Media phone line costs £13.90 a month but the TV packages are more expensive without it, so it normally makes sense to take the phone line. You can then add broadband from size L (10Mb speed), XL (30Mb) or XXL (50Mb) and in some parts of the country there is a 100Mb download speed broadband service. Popular triple bundles are shown below, to see the M+, L and XL TV packages on the Virgin site click on the relevant logo below that.
Starter TV Bundle
From £20 a month
Size ‘M+’ TV, that’s 75 channels, On Demand & Catch-Up, 10Mb Broadband + unlimited weekend phone calls! Free TiVo box activation and installation at the moment saving £99.50. From £20 p/m plus £13.90 Virgin phone line rental.
Great Value TiVo
£23 a month
Free TiVo box activation and installation special offer! The amazing 500GB TiVo Box – 10MB Broadband built in – live, on demand and catch-up TV. TV M+, Broadband L & Phone M. £13.90 line rental.
Super Speedy Broadband
£34.50 a month
Superfast 50Mb Broadband, Size ‘M+’ TV (75 channels, On Demand, Catch-Up) & Phone with free weekend calls with a Virgin phone line Free TiVo box and free installation. Plus £13.90 per month Virgin phone line rental.
TiVo 1TB with TV XL
£45 a month
TV size ‘XL’ – 175 channels – massive 1TB TiVo Box for £49.95 one-off fee. Record & pause HD and 3D TV, 10Mb Broadband and Phone with Talk Weekends – £13.90 per month Virgin phone line required. Loads of channels!
Here's how Virgin TV packages work...
Choose TV Size
- M+ - over 65 Channels
- L - over 100 Channels
- XL - over 160 Channels
- All include catch-up TV
Choose Your Box
- V HD Box
- 500GB TiVo Box
- 1TB TiVo Box
- All HD & 3D Ready
Add Extras & Broadband
- Sky Sports Collection - £22.50 a Month
- Sky Movies Collection - £19.50 a Month
- Broadband from 10Mb to 100Mb Speeds
- Virgin line rental £13.90 a Month
Virgin TV Sizes
Virgin Media offer their TV packages in 3 sizes - M+, L and XL - with a different amount of channels in each, starting with all of the basic channels you can get free-to-air and adding more subscription ones on as the package size increases. All 3 sizes include free access to catch-up TV from the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand Five and some HD content is included with all sizes, although most HD channels are in the XL package. Just click on the picture for more information on the Virgin website.
TV M+75 TV channels - Entertainment including Sky 1 & 2, Sky Living and the Universal Channel - Factual including Discovery - Basic Kids channels - Lifestyle from Sky Arts 1 & 2 - Movies 24 and FilmFour - Music, News and Shopping and Sport from Eurosport, At The Races and Sky Sports News. Click for the full channel list . |
TV LAll of the channels in M+ plus 40 more, here are the main gains - Entertainment Alibi, SyFy & Comedy Central - Factual Animal Planet & Eden - Kids - Boomerang, Nickelodeon & more - Lifestyle - 5 Discovery channels, DMax & Good Food - Movies from True Movies 1 & TCM - Music - includes Kiss, VH1 & 3 MTV channels - One more Sports with the addition of Extreme. Full channel list |
TV XLThe lot, at over 175 channels - what's extra? Lots of HD channels - 17 more than M+ and L - Entertainment CBS Reality & FX - Factual 3 different National Geographic channels - Kids - Disney channels - Music - adds on The Box, more MTV, Q & Kerrang! - Sports ESPN including ESPN America and Classic. Full channel list |
Choosing a Virgin Box
Virgin TV is available with either a basic V HD box - HD and 3D ready but with no pause, rewind and record functions - or one of 2 sizes of TiVo Box, giving you 500GB or 1 Terabyte of recording space. Virgin TiVo also gives you super-advanced ways of searching and recording programmes - more details here on the TiVo page - and costs £3 a month extra plus an activation fee of £49.95 for the larger 1TB box.
This sums up two of the key differences between Virgin and Sky Digital - on Sky everyone gets Sky+ PVR functions like pausing, rewinding and recording whereas you need to pay extra for TiVo on Virgin. On Virgin everyone gets access to HD channels as standard but on Sky you need to take the HD Pack for an extra £10.25 a month.
Extra Channels
You can get both Sky Sports and Sky Movies through Virgin Media, they can be taken as individual channels such as Sky Sports 1 or 2 only or as 'Collections'.
The Sky Sports Collection for £22.50 a month includes Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and 4 with 1 and 2 also in HD (you can only get all four in HD through Sky).
The Sky Movies Collection for £19.50 a month includes all of the genre-based movie channels like Family, Crime & Thriller and Indie with most available in HD too.
Virgin Media Broadband
Assuming you take a TV package with the Virgin phone line you could make it a triple bundle by adding Virgin Media broadband to the mix. Virgin are known for the consistently good download speeds delivered by their broadband, partly because with fibre optic cable the service doesn't slow down as you get further from the telephone exchange. Broadband L is the basic 10Mb service, followed by XL (30Mb) and XXL (up to 50Mb) - there is also a 100Mb broadband in certain areas of the country and coming soon to the rest.
