Virgin TV Packages

If you want to get cable TV the best way to get it is bundled with (definitely) phone and (probably) broadband, and there are two levels of choice to be made here. Virgin TV packages come in M+, L and XL – you need to decide which one suits you best – and then the bundles are made up of your chosen TV package plus phone and broadband – so you need to pick the right bundle. A Virgin Media phone line costs £13.90 a month but the TV packages are more expensive without it, so it normally makes sense to take the phone line. You can then add broadband with average speeds of up to 30Mb, 60Mb or 100Mb – without doubt the fastest broadband in the UK. Popular triple bundles are shown below in the form of the Virgin Media Collections, to see the M+, L and XL TV packages on the Virgin site click on the relevant logos below that.

Classic Collection
£18 a month

Virgin TV M

58 channels including 5 in HD, a 500GB TiVo Box, up to 30Mb Broadband + unlimited weekend landline calls! Catch-up and on-demand too, the cheapest Virgin bundle, price £18 per month plus £14.99 Virgin phone line rental.

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Essential Collection
£25 a month

Virgin TiVo Box

Free installation offer when you buy online! The 500GB TiVo Box gives you 83 channels of live TV plus on demand and catch-up. Broadband up to 30Mb & Talk Weekends – price £25 p/m plus £14.99 line rental.

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Premiere Collection
£45 a month

Virgin 50MB Broadband

Get the 500GB TiVo box PLUS another HD Box, 179 channels of TV inc 24 in HD, 60Mb Broadband, 3 months free Spotify and Phone with Talk Weekends Free installation online. £45 a month plus £14.99 line rental.

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VIP Collection
£90 a month

Virgin V+HD

For those who want it all – 205 channels (36 in HD) plus Sky Sports & Sky Movies, massive 1TB TiVo Box plus another HD box, 100Mb Broadband & Phone with Talk Anytime – phew! Price £90 p/m plus £14.99 line rental

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Here's how Virgin TV packages work...

Choose TV Size

  • M+ - 83 Channels
  • L - 123 Channels
  • XL - 179 Channels
  • All include catch-up TV

Choose Your Box

  • V HD Box
  • 500GB TiVo Box
  • 1TB TiVo Box
  • All HD & 3D Ready

Add Extras & Broadband

  • Sky Sports Collection - £22.50 a Month
  • Sky Movies Collection - £19.50 a Month
  • Broadband from 30Mb to 100Mb Speeds
  • Virgin line rental £13.90 a Month

Virgin TV Sizes

Virgin Media offer their TV packages in 3 sizes - M+, L and XL - with a different amount of channels in each, starting with all of the basic channels you can get free-to-air and adding more subscription ones on as the package size increases. All 3 sizes include free access to catch-up TV from the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand Five and some HD content is included with all sizes, although most HD channels are in the XL package. Just click on the picture for more information on the Virgin website.

TV M+

TV M+

83 TV channels - Entertainment including Sky 1 & 2, Sky Living and the Universal Channel - Factual including Discovery - Basic Kids channels - Lifestyle from Sky Arts 1 & 2 - Movies 24 and FilmFour - Music, News and Shopping and Sport from Eurosport, At The Races and Sky Sports News. Click for the full channel list

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 TV L

TV L

All of the channels in M+ and more, making 123 channels. Here are the main gains - Entertainment Alibi, SyFy & Comedy Central - Factual Animal Planet & Eden - Kids - Boomerang, Nickelodeon & more - Lifestyle - 5 Discovery channels, DMax & Good Food - Movies from True Movies 1 & TCM - Music - includes Kiss, VH1 & 3 MTV channels - One more Sports with the addition of Extreme. Full channel list

TV XL

The lot, at 179 channels - what's extra? Lots of HD channels - 17 more than M+ and L - Entertainment CBS Reality & FX - Factual 3 different National Geographic channels - Kids - Disney channels - Music - adds on The Box, more MTV, Q & Kerrang! - Sports ESPN including ESPN America and Classic. Full channel list

Virgin Media Collections

Virgin's 4 most popular bundles are the Virgin Media Collections - Classic (coming soon), Essential, Premiere and VIP and any of these can be taken and adapted to come up with the right combination for you - alternatively you can build a bundle completely from scratch.

Classic Collection

This is the newest Collection, coming soon - it will be made up of TV M, the 30Mb broadband service (hardly 'basic', pretty fast we'd say) and Talk Weekends (or Phone M). This package comes with a 500GB TiVo Box so you can watch HD channels if you have an HD TV (6 HD channels included) and record, pause and rewind TV. Cost will be £18 a month with an initial installation fee payable but we expect an introductory offer too - watch this space. More on the Classic Collection here.

Essential Collection

Like the Starter Bundle this comprises TV M+, up to 30Mb broadband and Talk Weekends but comes with a TiVo box instead of the V HD box, meaning you can record up to 500GB of programmes and use the pause, forward and rewind PVR functions too. Details on the Virgin Media Essential Collection page here.

Premiere Collection

One step up but quite a leap in what you get - TV XL with 179 channels and more On Demand content than the M+ package, broadband up to 60Mb average speed, Talk Weekends on the phone and a TiVo box plus a V HD box for a second room. Check out the Premiere Collection here.

VIP Collection

Virgin had a VIP or Very Impressive Package bundle for a long time - the VIP Collection is a new one but is still designed to give you the best of everything. It comes with TV XL plus Sky Sports and Sky Movies, making a total of 205 channels, 100Mb broadband and Talk Unlimited, which includes anytime landline and Virgin Mobile calls. The VIP Collection comes with a 1 Terabyte TiVo box (that's twice the memory for storing recorded programmes) as well as a V HD box for you second room - details of the collection here.

Choosing a Virgin Box

Virgin TV is available with either a basic V HD box - HD and 3D ready but with no pause, rewind and record functions - or one of 2 sizes of TiVo Box, giving you 500GB or 1 Terabyte of recording space. Virgin TiVo also gives you super-advanced ways of searching and recording programmes - more details here on the TiVo page - and costs £5 a month extra plus an activation fee of £49.95 for the larger 1TB box.

This sums up two of the key differences between Virgin and Sky Digital - on Sky everyone gets Sky+ PVR functions like pausing, rewinding and recording whereas you need to pay extra for TiVo on Virgin. On Virgin everyone gets access to HD channels as standard but on Sky you need to take the HD Pack for an extra £10.25 a month.

Extra Channels

You can get both Sky Sports and Sky Movies through Virgin Media, they can be taken as individual channels such as Sky Sports 1 or 2 only or as 'Collections'.

Sky SportsThe Sky Sports Collection for £22.50 a month includes Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and 4 with 1 and 2 also in HD (you can only get all four in HD through Sky).

The Sky Movies Collection for £19.50 a month includes all of the genre-based movie channels like Family, Crime & Thriller and Indie with most available in HD too.

Virgin Media Broadband

Assuming you take a TV package with the Virgin phone line you could make it a triple bundle by adding Virgin Media broadband to the mix. Virgin are known for the consistently good download speeds delivered by their broadband, partly because with fibre optic cable the service doesn't slow down as you get further from the telephone exchange. Virgin Broadband comes in 3 sizes giving average download speeds of up to 30Mb, 60Mb and 100Mb.

More Virgin TV Packages