Virgin claims the move means it is now the only provider in the UK to offer BT Sport as part of one subscription.
Virgin claims the £3 price rise for XL packages, which will take effect from September 1st, comes on the back of work done to help minimise the rising cost of sports subscriptions and adding the BT Sport Europe channel. While any price rise may seem at odds with the idea of minimising costs, the increase is less than those soon to be implemented by BT (+£6) and Sky (+£7.49).
BT Sport Europe in SD and HD will also be included in the bolt-on package for non-XL customers - the cost of which has risen from £15 to £18 a month with no activation fee.
Update: here's the Virgin Media Press Release, which strangely doesn't mention the price rise.
BT Sport Europe HD will join BT Sport channels - 1 HD, 2HD and BT Sport ESPN HD - on the Virgin Media platform from launch on 1st August and will be available to all TV XL customers and TV customers taking BT Sport as a bolt on.
In addition to BT Sport Europe HD, we have added more HD channels including Nat Geo Wild HD and Lifestyle HD.
Our TV Anywhere service offers 100 live channels to enjoy over WiFi and is currently the UK’s most comprehensive TV on-the-go service.
Our extended contract with BT means that in addition to the Uefa Champions League and Europa League matches, TV XL customers can enjoy a wide variety of sports content including: English Premier League Football (38 matches), FA Cup (25 matches), Aviva Premiership Rugby (69 matches), up to 500 matches from across the German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A and French Ligue 1, UFC, NBA (basketball), MLB (Baseball) and Moto GP.
Subscribers will be able to stream matches live on TV Anywhere via tablets, mobiles, laptops and PCs.
You’ll also get access to BT Sport Extra (which is BT’s interactive red button content), allowing you to watch all eight matches during the UEFA Champions League group stages.
8 comments:
Not happy about this! Don't want to pay for the prima donnas in Football. Its a double whammy for us Nrl fans who have to pay extra for Premier Sports & it looks as though Virgin aren't taking up the new Premier Sports HD. I don't want to switch to Sky as I love Tivo, but this may just tip me over the edge. I would have preferred Atlantic for the extra £3 a month instead. At least its entertaining unlike the so called beautiful game!!!
Also not happy at all. I have no interest at all in this new channel and don't want to pay £3/month for a channel I will never watch.
This is appalling! I have zero interest in sport. Why on earth should I be paying extra for a channel I don't want. Seriously thinking about cancelling the whole TV service and going down the Now TV route.
At the end of the day they raise the price every year and every year also bring on board some HD channel or other whether we want them or not, but we accept them in a positive way as we psychologically see price rises each year as normal and then extra channels as a bonus.
What we don't want is a reason for the price rise that is outside of expected yearly inflation and then told we are all to pay for it regardless of if we want it. To bring a channel to the service that less than 20% of subscribers have an interest in and then enforce everyone to pay for it, is a negative thing to do.
The fact is that if they added £3 a year extra on during the expected price rise and then said they were offering it for free we would have mainly accepted it much more positively, but this way of doing it is a negative way and as such people are unhappy.
The end result is they just lost their way of using psychological marketing to influence customers to accept it.
hi i spoke to james on live chat virgin media,here is a copy,
James: Hi, welcome to Virgin Media. How can I help?
James: Just type your question below…
You: hi james just heard xl tv going up by £3.00 for football ??
You: in september
James: Thank you for visiting VirginMedia.com today!
James: We will provide our TV XL users BT Europe for this we will increase their monthly cost by £3 a month.
You: but i dont want football or watch it,so i have no choice
You: but to pay this increase
James: No worries, if you are not interested in BT Europe you won't need to pay £3 a month extra.
You: oh ok now that seems fair,thanks for putting that straight
James: Is there anything else I can help you with?
You: no thats it thanks
James: Thank you for visiting us.
You: ok by
James: Bye and take care :)
I hope what Alan was true. I for one shall refuse to pay the increase... Those who want even more football channels should pay for them, and not expect the rest of us to subsidise it.
If Virgin refuse to waive the increase I shall be cancelling my TV XL and TiVo, and switching to freeview+ and Netflix/Amazon ... And save a load of money as well.
hi gary
yes it was true i copied and pasted everything that was said when i went on virgin media web site and got on to live chat to them,we will wait and see,i do hope what he said was true.if not i shall show them this and look elsewhere
They've got an inconsistent message being given out. See my latest post
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