Virgin TV L

TV L is the middle of the three TV package sizes on offer from Virgin Media and gives you over 115 channels plus catch-up and on-demand content. TV M+ is the smaller package at 75 channels and the top one is TV XL, with over 175 channels to choose from.

Virgin TV L has all of the channels of M+ – including Sky 1, Sky Living, the Discovery Channel, Universal Channel and Eurosport – plus around 40 more. These extras include most of the Discovery family, Animal Planet, Comedy Central, Extreme Sports and SyFy, and there’s a definite benefit for kids with the addition on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, and for music fans as TV L includes MTV and VH1.

All of Virgin Media’s TV packages include access to BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand Five, and if you take it with a TiVo box it’s really easy to find catch-up content. In the same way as you would scroll forwards on the EPG to arrange recordings with TiVo you can scroll back through the last 7 days and select any catch-up programmes to watch.

On to the different boxes, TV M+ can be taken with a basic V HD box for £12.50 a month or with either a 500GB TiVo box or the 1 Terabyte version for £15.50 a month – the smaller box has free set-up and activation where the 1TB version with twice the memory will cost £49.95 for activation. These monthly prices depend on having a Virgin phone line which costs an extra £13.90 a month, so the total monthly cost for the basic package is £26.40. You can take TV L without a phone line for £18.50 a month.