Virgin drops 10 UKTV channels: are you affected?

The arrogance of all concerned has really angered me. As long-standing Virgin XL customers with bundled broadband and phone, you would have thought they could have let us know. I found out through the Radio Times Twitter feed!

We are now looking into reducing our package with them to a minimum as we don’t really watch many of the extra channels they provide. Also, as we have Freeview and Netflix, there really isn’t much that we can’t watch in another way.

I feel that all providers have us over a barrel – deciding at a whim what we can and cannot watch, despite paying out many hundreds of pounds a year. I remember being particularly annoyed at ITV when they decided to set up a Sky only channel (Encore) and made one of my favourite shows, The Americans unavailable. That obviously didn’t work very well for them, and now I can see it again on ITV4. What next?
We don’t have any guarantees that other channels that Virgin currently use won’t follow suit. We really are at the mercy of large, greedy companies and, guess what, it is the customer that suffers every time.

As well as cutting out content for their customers, Virgin are bullying UKTV who, quite reasonably in my view, want a higher payment for their prestige channels in return for making the free ones available. I am not a Virgin customer, so it doesn’t affect me, but I sympathise with those who have committed everything to Virgin and have no alternative technology to catch the channels they like.

I agree with Sophie about Virgin Trains they are not so fast as the French ones and not so spacious but that’s not their fault; most of the the British railways were built to a smaller loading gauge than those on the Continent, but there are equivalent trains on the route from St Pancras and through the Channel Tunnel [I won’t mention HS2].

virginmedia had not got the guts to tell there customers about it or even offer a reduction in there charges I am unhappy about it they seem to have no loyality to there customers after being with them for years

I got a glib response on Twitter from VM who suggested I should watch UKTVs channels via the web.
Virgin Media is owned by Liberty Global who pay a licence fee to use the name. (The same is true of many of the other Virgin named business.) So Virgin Media, Trains, Money etc all have different ownership

I’m not a Virgin subscriber, so:

Have I been affected by the removal of the 10 UKTV channels? No.

Am I considering leaving as a result? No.

If my PlusNet BB ever turns out to be too slow, I might join Virgin for a BB only service.

I am upset that some of the UKTV channels have been removed and have looked at the alternatives, but as we can see our recorded programs in other rooms at a bargain price with Virgin it is not economic to change to another provider. Free view is not the answer as we used to record UKTV programs that are on late at night. I am not impressed.

I’ve been a VM customer for many many years including all their previous incarnations NTL, Nynex etc etc.. They have undoubtedly shot themselves in the foot. I’ve been reading comments on the VM’s own community site and to say there is a groundswell of dissatisfaction would be an understatement of biblical proportions. It seems people have already, or are in the process of changing supplier, mostly to Sky. For my part I will give it a month to see if the enormity of their mistake and the ensuing PR disaster finally dawns on them. Then I will consider my options.

Whilst I realise that their contract is probably watertight in that they reserve the right to add or delete channels at will I find it difficult to understand how they justify the removal of UKTV and its substitution wth totally random second rate channels announcing ’The addition of new and exciting channels’. Some of these are even duplicated and were already included in my TV XL bundled phone and broadband package anyway….’new and exciting’ I don’t think so! Surely this is totally misleading.

In the meantime I shall be contacting VM to demand a reduction in my subscription. Although just how I contact them is another matter since amazingly for a Tech company they do not appear to have an email address for complaints. Their customer complaints telephone line is always engaged and and ‘Live Chat’ is always ‘unavailable at the present time’ surprise surprise!

I gave up on Virgin back when they removed all the Sky channels. Luckily I was out of contract so just moved to Sky. Have never regretted it. Virgin treat their customers with utter contempt. I think someone should challenge the legality of their contract wording – it basically says ‘you’ll have whatever you’re given and still have to pay the same’. Nope!

I am on the Virginmedia Fun package. The loss of Dave, Really, etc is a big inconvenience to me and my wife. We habitually record some of the old programs (Last of the Summer Wine, for example) on the Tivo box for watching at our convenience. Of course, you can’t do this with Freeview without buying another complicated expensive box and it seems that Virgin will delete all my Tivo recordings after 3 months! If we don’t get UKTV back, we will think about cancelling Virginmedia, buying a new recording box and looking at who can give us a cheap home telephone service.
NB One of the replacement channels is 127 Premium Sports HD. The Virginmedia website says that this will be subscription free for 2 months. We don’t watch sports much and I am concerned that I will be charged for this automatically after the 2 months (I have no idea how much!) I have phoned VM to cancel this channel but it is still on my channel list. I have been caught out before by so-called “free” upgrades only to find a later rise in my bill. So it is worth watching out for.

If Virgin is suddenly bereft of some of its key channels it either has to fight back or capitulate. Regular subscribers are going to be ***** off (my asterisks, translate them if you wish) and Virgin will lose some of its revenue. Price reductions probably won’t compensate. People want to watch what they want to watch. It seems as though Virgin can’t fight back in a channel blocking war, or the opposition would have not bothered to blank their output for fear of reprisal. The other option is to pay what is asked of them and take the additional cost on the chin, quietly hiking the subscription fees. Sky does this very effectively claiming that they are doing us a favour and we shouldn’t begrudge them a little extra. It is a cut throat business with many companies vying for our subscriptions and the fickle public shifting loyalties to the next attraction or trend. Is there an argument that the public are entitled to see the television they wish to see, provided they pay for it, thus each supplier should be required to supply every channel as part of their service? If this were the case, then, like the power industry, it would be the service each provided that would gain them the leading edge. Now, each company has their own little cohort of programmes to peddle and they are getting protective about who else can show them. The consumer can only sit and watch -or not as the case may be.

We are bereft without Alibi, Drama and Yesterday. VM offered to lower our payments but as have Netflix and Freeview already on another TV I’m thinking of cancelling. I’m getting 100mbps B.B. Anyone think of any reliable suppliers for just B.B.?

I have been a virgin Media customer ever since it laid a cable in my street many years ago. How Virgin expect the owners of the channels we can no longer watch to drop their charges, I do not know. All prices are going up. Virgin have the cheek to increase our package prices (Over £100 per month for us) and stop us watching our favourite channels. We are missing the old re-runs of The Bill and similar on W and Dave. Seriously considering changing our providers for TV internet and telephone. When Virgin act without even considering their customers, they do not deserve to retain our loyalty.

you have broken your contract me us so you shound drop your prices NOW. The extra channels r rubbish .