Virgin Media UK Increases Mid-Contract Price Hikes to £4 and Refreshes Bundles

Mixed news for customers of Virgin Media’s broadband and pay TV services today. The provider has decided to follow BT’s (inc. Plusnet and EE) recent move (here) by increasing their existing mid-contract pricing policy to adopt an annual rise of £4 (monthly) each April (up from £3.50). But Netflix is now included in more of their broadband and TV bundles.

Just for some context. At the start of 2025 Ofcom began requiring telecoms providers to adopt a new approach to mid-contract price hikes, which did away with the old percentage and inflation-based model – replacing it with one that must now set out such price rises “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up” (here). This made annual price hikes clearer and more transparent, but not necessarily cheaper.

In response, many providers later followed BT’s lead by setting out a new pricing policy that would increase the monthly price that customers pay by a flat £3 extra from March or April each year (this can vary a bit between providers). But inflation has remained higher than originally anticipated and, partly as a result of that, BT recently announced that they would increase their annual hikes by an extra pound to £4.

Since then the expectation was that other providers, at least those that adopt this sort of pricing policy (most of the largest players and a few others), would soon follow BT’s lead and today Virgin Media has become the next operator to do so. But in fairness to Virgin, they’ve confirmed that they’ll be going from a flat price increase of up to £3.50 – applied each April – to £4. This is a smaller 50p increase and one that aligns them with BT.

Virgin Media has historically attracted criticism for doing the most expensive mid-contract hikes, so this smaller increase is technically a positive change. Customers are of course unlikely to see it that way, as any annual price hike is still a price hike.

A Virgin Media spokesperson said:

“Customers taking one of our latest packages, which offer fantastic value including Netflix as standard on all TV bundles and Sky Sports in HD at no extra cost, will see their prices rise by £4 a month each April. No prices are changing now and no changes are being made to existing customer contracts.

This 13p a day rise represents excellent value for connectivity customers use more than ever and is greatly outweighed by the £5m we invest every single day into our networks and services to ensure we continue to provide the fast, reliable connectivity our customers expect and rely on.”

At this point some of our readers might be wondering what O2’s approach will be for mobile users, although they have tended to do smaller mid-contract hikes for mobile services (currently +£1.80 on airtime bills and 75p on mobile broadband in April each year). But VMO2 informed ISPreview that “there are no price increases for O2 customers to announce“, at least not today.

Some Positive Changes to Bundles

On the positive side of things, Virgin Media has also announced that they’re refreshing their bundles a bit. For example, the popular Netflix video streaming service is now included as standard (“Standard with Ads“) across their full TV bundle range and also with broadband-only packages of M500 and above “at no extra cost“.

At the same time, they’vealso  updated their TV packages, including names, in the hopes that customers will find picking the right package much easier (there are now five core TV packages). As part of this, and much as we first hinted over the weekend (here), Virgin Media has boosted the lowest broadband speed available with TV packages to M250 (previously it was 125Mbps).

The new bundles also provide a simplified home phone offering, as well as reduced prices on Talk plans for existing customers looking to re-contract. New customers can add Talk Anytime to their bundle for just £8 per month (previously £15), offering them unlimited calls any time of day to UK landlines and mobiles. Existing customers wanting to add home phone services to their package can also get Weekend Chatter for just £3 per month, saving them £2 per month on their home phone services compared to previous pricing.

Finally, all Sky premium channels now come in HD as standard, boosting the viewing experience for sports and movie fans. For example, Sky Sports is also now included in HD as standard (previously a £7 add-on), meaning customers can “enjoy an enhanced viewing experience at no extra cost“.

Christian Hindennach, Chief Commercial Officer at VMO2, said:

“As the world of entertainment evolves, we’re focused on not only shaping our offering to continue to meet our customers’ needs, but ensuring we bring together the very best in connectivity and programming so they can enjoy an experience that truly works for their household – all in one place. Netflix is one of the biggest streaming providers across the globe, and through our enhanced partnership, Virgin Media customers can enjoy even more value and access to the greatest shows, movies, documentaries and more as part of their bundle, and at no extra cost.”

Overall, today’s announcement looks to be a tale of two halves, with some positive changes for bundles being tempered by a price increase to the provider’s existing policy on mid-contract hikes.