Virgin TV is the digital TV service from Virgin Media (formerly NTL and Telewest), now the UK's main cable TV supplier. They offer excellent value bundles mixing Digital TV, Phone and Broadband - you need to live in an area that's been cabled and then install the Virgin TV box. Here are some of the most popular deals...
Deal Alert - Free installation on 10MB broadband Dual packages, Free installation on 20MB packages and Free installation and activation on 50MB broadband packages - offer ends 31st October.
This great bundle has size 'M+' TV, that's 60 channels, On Demand & Catch-Up, 10Mb Broadband plus Phone with unlimited weekend calls! Total with phone line £30.99
Size 'L' TV (over 100 channels, On Demand, Catch-Up) with 10MB Broadband & Free weekend calls when you take a Virgin landline phone - total £35.49 p/m.
Superfast 50Mb Broadband, Size 'M+' TV (65 channels, On Demand, Catch-Up) & Phone with free weekend calls! With Virgin phone line, total £45.49 p/m.
TV size 'XL' - 165 channels - V+ Box for £49, normally £99. Record & pause live TV, 10Mb Broadband and Phone with Talk Weekends. Total with phone line £48.49 p/m.
Virgin offer their cable TV in four sizes - M, M+, L and XL, and the V+ box can be added to any of them for recording and pausing live TV. M is the basic 45 channel package that comes free with a Virgin phone line (£11.99 a month for the phone). Here are the details of the larger packages...
• Includes Virgin1, Film4 and loads more
• On Demand - massive library to watch any time
• Catchup TV - never miss a thing!
• Virgin Central - 6 of the top shows when you want them
• £6.50 p/m with Phone - Total £18.49 a month
• Includes LIVINGtv, MTV and loads more
• On Demand - massive library to watch any time
• Catchup TV - never miss a thing!
• Virgin Central - 6 of the top shows when you want them
• £12 p/m with Phone - Total £23.99 a month
• Includes ESPN Sport, MTV, Nickelodeon and more
• On Demand and Catchup TV
• Virgin Central - 6 of the top shows when you want them
• V+ included - record and pause live TV!
• £24 p/m with Phone - Total £35.99 a month
• Pause & rewind live TV, no more missing important bits!
• Record two channels while watching a third one
• HD ready - get crystal clear picture with an HD TV
• Included with TV Size XL
• £49 installation then £5 a month with Size M+ & L
Most people imagine that cable TV is a relatively recent invention, coming to the UK some time in the Eighties, but it's actually been in use since around 1932, pioneered by the company Rediffusion who had started broadcasting radio services via cable in 1928. When the BBC started their first television service in 1932, Rediffusion provided what they called 'Pipe TV' to customers who couldn't get a very good signal over the airwaves. Over the next 40 years Rediffusion and other smaller companies carried on building their base of customers in any area with poor reception, until by the late 1970s there were around 2.5 million homes in Britain with cable TV. The problem came when the transmitter network improved and so the incentive to sign up to cable TV dwindled, as it didn't offer anything that was not already available over the air.
This all changed in 1984 with the passing of two parliamentary bills, the Cable and Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act. These enabled the cable TV providers to transmit as many TV channels as they wanted, a telephone service and interactive data services, which would pave the way for cable internet access. The Cable Authority was established in 1985 to oversee the new rules, and several cable companies sprang up to try their luck in the market, but in the end (by the early 2000s) the area came to be dominated by two companies, NTL and Telewest. New TV channels were came along to fill the demand created by the new cable TV companies - Sky Channel (in 1982, before Sky were into satellite), Screensport, Music Box and the original movie channel, Ten.
In 2006 NTL and Telewest confirmed their merger to become ntl Incorporated, but soon after that when NTL bought Virgin Mobile the whole cable TV service was rebranded Virgin Media in 2007.