Cable TV, satellite TV and digital TV packages Virgin Media
Virgin Media shows Sky Sports and Sky Movies via cable
Minimum cost £12.99 a month for phone-line rental with a £40 installation charge for new customers.
Pros You can bundle home phone, mobile and broadband with your TV subscription. This can work out cheaper than getting services individually. Good choice of TV channels.
Cons Coverage isn’t as wide as Sky's, and you can't buy digital TV as a standalone service. The service must be combined with a phone or broadband package.
What is Virgin Media?
Virgin Media offers three digital cable TV packages: M+, L and XL. A basic M package is included with its home phone service. 12-month contracts apply but you can change your package during that time. Sky's premium Sports and Movies channels and ESPN can be added to TV packages at any time for an additional cost.
It's a good choice if you want lots of channels, but aren’t interested in satellite. It could be suitable if you need a phone line or broadband bundled with digital TV.
See the Which? phone, broadband and TV package review to find out how Virgin rates in our survey.
Virgin Media TV channels
The prices given below include Virgin line rental of £12.99 a month.
The Size M+ TV package features similar basic channels to Freeview.
Virgin Media M+ TV package
Costs £19.49 a month. This package gives you 65 channels including:
- Music 4 Music, Viva
- Sport At the Races, Eurosport
- Entertainment Bravo, Challenge, G.O.L.D, Living, Virgin 1, Sky 1 & 2
- News Sky News, CNN
- Factual Discovery Channel.
Virgin Media L TV package
Costs £25.49 a month for 100 digital TV channels, including all the channels in Size M+ and additional channels including:
- Entertainment Alibi, Comedy Central, Sci Fi, Watch
- Factual Animal Planet, Eden
- Kids Boomerang, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon
- News CNBC
- Lifestyle Discovery Knowledge & Science
- Sport Extreme Sport
- Music MTV 1.
Virgin Media XL TV package
Costs £37.49 a month for access to 160 channels, including all the channels in Size L channels and additional channels including:
- Factual Bio, Crime & Investigation, History, National Geographic
- Entertainment CBS Reality, Diva TV, FX
- Kids Disney Channel, Jetix
- Sport ESPN
- Music Kerrang!, KISS, Q
- Lifestyle Sky Real Lives, Travel & Living.
See how the latest TVs from Sony, Panasonic and LG rate in the Which? TV review.
Sky Sports, Sky Movies and ESPN on Virgin Media
Sky Movies and Sky Sports options are available to add on to all Virgin packages for an additional cost. The prices below include £12.24 line rental and the TV package cost:
With Virgin Media M+ TV package
- Sky Sports 1 or 2 – £14.50
- Sky Sports Collection includes Sky Sports 1, 2 & 3 and Sky Sports Extra – £22.50
- Sky Sports and Movies includes Sky Movies 1 & 2, Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and Extra – £29.50.
With Virgin Media L TV package
- Sky Sports 1 or 2 – £14.50
- Sky Sports Collection includes Sky Sports 1, 2 & 3 and Sky Sports Extra – £22.50
- Sky Sports and Movies includes Sky Movies 1 & 2, Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and Extra – £29.50.
With Virgin Media XL TV package
- Sky Sports 1 or 2 – £14.50
- Sky Sports Collection includes Sky Sports 1, 2 & 3 and Sky Sports Extra – £22.50
- Sky Sports and Movies includes Sky Movies 1 & 2, Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and Extra – £29.50.
Virgin also offers some standalone channels that cost extra. Disney Cinemagic costs £5 a month extra. The Asian Collection – including Zee TV, SET MAX, B4U Movies and Star channels – costs an additional £10 a month.
You can watch ESPN and ESPN America in HD TV with Sky and Virgin
ESPN and ESPN America
You can add ESPN, including ESPN America, to your standard subscription for £8 a month, or £6 a month if you also subscribe to Sky Sports. If you get Virgin’s XL package, you’ll get the channels included as standard.
You can watch most live content on ESPN in high definition, but you’ll also need to pay £5 a month for Virgin’s HD service – see Virgin Media HD below.
Picture Box
You can now also sign up to Universal Studios' Picture Box service with Virgin. The service gives you access to 28 films a month for £5. The film line-up is refreshed every week, with seven new titles replacing the oldest ones.
Virgin Media on demand
You automatically get access to Virgin’s catch-up TV service, which lets you watch shows from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Virgin 1 broadcast over the last seven days.
If you’d prefer to have access to channels such as Warner Brothers, HBO, MTV, Living and Bravo, you might like Virgin’s TV Choice on-demand service. This works in much the same way as catch-up TV, but costs £7 extra a month (or free if you choose Virgin’s XL TV package).
Virgin Media bundles
Virgin Media offers home phone, mobile and broadband services. You can get various deals where you combine two or more of these services.
- 10MB, 20MB and 50MB unlimited broadband services can be bundled with a TV package
- Virgin's cable phone bundles include free weekend, evening and weekend, or anytime calls.
Virgin's bundles start from £18.74 for TV Size M+ and Phone Size M. You can also create your own bundle with any combination of phone, broadband and TV packages.
Virgin Media HD
As with any HD service, you’ll need an HD-ready TV to watch Virgin’s high-definition channels.
Virgin has recently grown its HD service and now shows seventeen channels broadcast in high definition. Virgin’s HD PVR, the V+, is currently on offer with a £49 setup fee for new customers.
Virgin has far fewer HD channels than Sky, but it charges a lower monthly fee of £5 for the service. It's free for customers subscribing to Virgin’s top XL TV package. As with Sky, you get only the HD channels that correspond to the standard-definition channels in your package.
For more on HD and HD services available check out the free Which? guide to HD TV explained.
Virgin Media Availability
Digital cable is available to around half of households in the UK.
