Stuck between a rock (Virgin) and a hard place (Sky)?

moneysavingnew

Hello all,

As always, thank you in advance for all the other posts here- some very useful information.

I'm currently a Virgin Media customer for all services and have XL TV with Sky Sports, M internet and the basic phone line service. However, one of the main incentives of taking XL TV initially was ESPN being included for free- at the time they had Premier League football and importantly as well to me, the rights to UFC events. Now, as of next Wednesday these are being transferred to BT Sport.

I've spoken to VM a few times and they are still not offering any insight into whether they'll be able to offer BT Sport and if they are, what that might look like in terms of cost. I'm tempted to switch to Sky and pay extra for the BT Sport channels, although I'm conscious I'll lose out on;

1. Recording 2 programmes, watching another that VM offer.
2. Mostly reliable fibre BB- my assumption has always been VM has better internet than Sky, although I may be wrong?

I'm concerned that Virgin wont actually lose the ESPN channel, its just that what ESPN now offer is significantly reduced.

I'm keen to get this sorted before the football season starts....Sky have offered (without any haggling) to match my current price for the same channels, plus BT Sport, which sounds like a good deal...

Any thoughts or advice would be really appreciated- I'm really worried about jumping ship and making the wrong choice! If there's any deals through other sites- i.e.- Quidco which would help nudge me towards Sky I'd be grateful for those!

I feel a bit lost by all of this!

MoneyMate

Used Sky many years ago, lot's of problems, now with Virgin, great company, more competitive on basic packages. :beer:

moneysavingnew

Thanks MoneyMate- the spanner in the works here is BT Sport!

Still no decision from Virgin which I think is rather poor considering it starts next week?

penrhyn

On Sky BT Sports 1 and 2 is £20 / month. Is it worth it for that?

woody_56

Hi I am in the same boat as you-
Surely it's in Virgins interest to come
to some agreement with the said party's.

I am on the extra large package with Virgin
which included ESPN and at the races.
I will lose both of those shortly? so im
obviously going to reduce my package
by having less channels I just don't need
them,I purchased the extra large solely
for those 2 channels.
I feel many more will follow suite.?????????????

davemurgatroyd

penrhyn wrote: »

On Sky BT Sports 1 and 2 is £20 / month. Is it worth it for that?

Try getting your facts correct - it is £12 pm or £15pm for HD.

penrhyn

Whoops, Must have mosread the info on the BT site, got a link?

topspur_2

Read yesterday that virgin are negotiating with bt about getting bt sport 1,2 and espn.. no idea when or if these negotiations will come to fruition.

I am currently in the same boat as the original poster so will be keeping a beady eye on this thread...although having been with virgin for such a long time I too, do worry about the switch.

jasonwatkins

i've only been with virgin for about 4 and a half months, but apparently i've been told that the loss of ESPN allows me to cancel penalty free as I took out the TV XL package when i first joined.

I'm hoping i can do that and go back to Sky as i hate TiVo with a passion. I just need to find out if i can get a decent offer to return to Sky, but I think 4 and a half months is not enough time to be considered a new customer unfortunately, as they'd just look to re-activate my old account.

[Deleted User]

jasonwatkins wrote: »

i've only been with virgin for about 4 and a half months, but apparently i've been told that the loss of ESPN allows me to cancel penalty free as I took out the TV XL package when i first joined.

I'm hoping i can do that and go back to Sky as i hate TiVo with a passion. I just need to find out if i can get a decent offer to return to Sky, but I think 4 and a half months is not enough time to be considered a new customer unfortunately, as they'd just look to re-activate my old account.

Out of interest... What's wrong with TiVo?
I used to have Virgin v plus box a few years ago and found that very clunky/slow and then changed to Sky HD plus box and was impressed on how smooth and quick it ran.

TiVo not improved the experience much then?

jasonwatkins

Deleted_User wrote: »

Out of interest... What's wrong with TiVo?
I used to have Virgin v plus box a few years ago and found that very clunky/slow and then changed to Sky HD plus box and was impressed on how smooth and quick it ran.

TiVo not improved the experience much then?

I think TiVo is just too over complicated for my own personal usage habits. I find i like to keep track of what i record and when i record it, so if i get a multiple clash (and some days i do actually get more than 3 way clashes) i want to just find the program i want to record on another day and series link it on that day.

Can't do that with TiVo. Have to set the series link and fanny around with recording priorities so it actually picks it up on the day i want. It also misses programs as well, but that's more to do with the static EPG. It often decides I want to watch multiple episodes of the same show, even though i set it to "New Only" - it records 6 episodes of "Click" each weekend unless i tell it otherwise.

Added to that, I find the box lags as well if you want to do certain things. And just other niggly things really.

I think the fact that i've only been away from sky for 4 and a half months will scupper this whole idea really, but maybe if i'm lucky, i'll get a decent enough offer from virgin that'll help me overlook TiVo being a pain