May 23, 2009

"Thousands of HD shows and movies on Virgin"

Check out page 53 of the Summer edition of the Virgin Media customer magazine Electric:
GET A V+ HD BOX!
Our V+ HD Box not only lets you pause and rewind live TV, you can also watch thousands of OnDemand shows and movies in glorious HD too!
TO GET V+ CALL US NOW ON 0800 052 6992
"Thousands"? Really? Where's that number for the Advertising Standards Authority?

14 comments:

Richardr said...

sharp practice I know (but to be expected) but isn't it:

"thousands of OnDemand shows"

and then

"movies in glorious HD"

as in plenty of ondemand in SD (and no time as to the thousands) and a few HD movies?

Nialli said...

Not without a comma after "shows" surely?
I'd question if there are actually thousands on VOD shows - I don't have the will to count them all, but would suggest hundreds rather than thousands.
Anyone signing up as a result of this particular piece of hype should be demanding their money back in my book.

Anonymous said...

I reckon about 2500 eps in tv choice right now (based on ~300 on first 7 pages and ~58 full pages in a-z, maybe not too accurate, but right order of magnitude)

You get the same selection (minus the few hd) on the standard v box though, dunno why that's a v+ selling point to existing vm customers! TV Choice not even included in non XL £5 v+ fee any more.

So worth an ASA complaint for being ambiguous at best. Unless they launch a few thou more "OnDemand shows and movies in glorious HD" v.soon.

Anonymous said...

They just can't help themselves but tell lies when it comes to HD. :(

Anonymous said...

Virgin still push the V+ as an HD device, but this certainly isn't the only bit of 'creative' marketting on their part. They also sell their heavily capped, massively over subscribed part copper broadband as 'unlimited' fibre optic broadband.

The whole company seems to be built on half truths and misleading the public.

Nialli said...

What I find quite bizarre is the way they promote what little HD content they have but don't seem to be able to market the On Demand service in any meaningful way. Every Sky customer I've shown On Demand to has been blown away by the "start when you like" on Filmflex movies and the the library of programmes available to XL customers for nowt, yet VM never shout about it. Odd.

Matt said...

The unthinkable has happened today!!!

I think I am going to leave virgin.

I am moving house in 4 weeks, so I thought I would speak to sky through their online chat and got the following:

HD
3x Entertainment
Sky Sports 1
Broadband Max 16mb

Free Sky Talk Anytime
12 Months free line rental
+£25 teco voucher.

an an amazing £39.50 per month!!!

Only thing I will miss is VOD and Catchup

I was paying £35 for XL TV and L Broadband

Anonymous said...

Matt that is amazing - the online calculator for all of that is £49 installation, £44.50 first month, then after the first month £64.25 (minus £10 a month for your free line rental I guess) and no tesco voucher!

I was looking at a very low end package to replace my lowest end VM V+ package and am impressed to see the offer of get HD for £9.75 and they pay your line rental of £10 for 12 months... makes it cost about the same as VM but has more channels and of course many more HD channels. But after seeing all of what you got I'm definitely going to try to blag some better broadband or movies or something.

Matt said...

Go to make your own package and click online chat....they can offer better deals.

I even rang to see if it was correct, it was but, the phone sales can't go that low.


...gonna ring up virgin now and cancel or see if they can better

Matt said...

I have moved over to the dark side.

Virgin media couldn't give me a deal anywhere close.

I wanted to stay with virgin and see it through, but the offer sky gave me was too good to turn down.

I will miss VOD though!

Anyway Nialli, thank you for your efforts over the year I have been a member and I wish you every success in the future.

Hopefully Virgin will buck up their ideas in the next 12 months, so i can come back

Nialli said...

I know a number of folk at Virgin, including the management, keep an eye on this blog as a gauge of customer opinion. I think a mood should be clear to all

Anonymous said...

Just ordered Sky for my house move. They're even installing the TV the day after I move in, and I was expecting a wait! Glad I just went ahead and ordered so I had the facts before VM retentions tried to lie to me about how Sky don't really have any HD boxes to install, how they don't really have any HD channels, how VM really are getting some HD channels very soon now (but no they won't refund my costs waiting for them if they don't turn up), how the cheapest VM broadband is superior (thanks for the "free" (forced £2) speed upgrade to 10MB, shame it's now actually slower than 2MB at all hours except around 4am)...

Bye bye Virgin Media - might see you again in 12 months when this free line rental offer expires... if you have anything like thousands of glorious HD ondemand shows and movies at a cheap price at least.

Matt said...

Yeah, they tried all the above with me. If you have all the figures from sky infront of you. It makes them look like fools.

Can I ask what deal you ended up getting?

Anonymous said...

Just sticker price! I was too stubborn to pay any more than the cheapest price already on the calculator (£26.25 per month for the first 12 months including HD, free phone line rental, free broadband) even if they would throw in anything else, and they wouldn't reduce it any further. That's already cheaper than VM's cheapest V+/phone/broadband combo I was on anyway and enough extra HD to keep me going, including channels I want like Sky1 HD and FX HD that are almost certainly not to be included in the VM Summer(ish) Six(ish). I'll see if I can get a cheap upgrade from them if I have some spare cash later in the year, movies would be nice!