Virgin Media UK Quietly Downgrade Netflix Standard on Top TV Bundles
Customers looking to take one of Virgin Media UK’s (VMO2) top broadband, pay TV, phone and or O2 SIM bundles – specifically ‘Mega Volt‘ and their ‘Biggest Combo‘ – should note that the ISP has quietly downgraded the Netflix plan they include in these packages with a much cheaper option.
Several of ISPreview’s readers (credits to Brad and Luke) have recently pointed out that the aforementioned bundles previously included Netflix’s Standard plan, which normally costs £10.99 a month when taken directly from the streaming provider. But the provider has now quietly downgraded the Netflix plan they include to adopt ‘Standard with Ads‘, which normally costs £4.99 when taken directly, albeit forcing users to view adverts.
The change is similar to EE and Sky’s (Sky Broadband) recent decision to swap their bundles with Netflix ‘Basics’ plan for the same ‘Standard with Ads’ (here), although in that case the adjustment made more sense because ‘Basics’ had already been retired by the streaming provider in favour of the ads tier and the pricing difference was much smaller. By comparison, Virgin Media can’t use the same excuse.
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The change wouldn’t be so bad if the price of the packages had been decreased by a similar amount to reflect the cheaper plan, but so far as we can tell they’re still being promoted at roughly the same price as before (e.g. Mega Volt still starts at £84.99 per month on an 18-month term).
A spokesperson for Virgin Media told ISPreview:
“These changes were introduced on 14 October, bringing us in line with competitors. It will apply to new customers only, with existing Biggest Combo and Mega Volt customers continuing to have access to Netflix Standard.
We always look to give our customers the best value possible, and the inclusion of Netflix Standard with Ads for new customers means we can continue to offer our customers a competitive package that includes all of the entertainment they enjoy. Customers have the option to upgrade to Netflix Standard or Netflix Premium should they wish to.”
Existing customers with the same bundles will naturally continue to receive the regular ‘Standard’ plan, although there may come a time when they want to re-contract and find that this means having to downgrade the Netflix plan at the same time to ‘Standard with Ads’.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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“These changes were introduced on 14 October, bringing us in line with competitors”… and yet no notable price decrease?
It’s about time providers are required to make changes like these blatantly obvious to all along with associated price differences.
It is blatantly obvious, as it’s on new packages only. Meaning that it’s in the description when you sign up. They are not changing the current packages.
Cheeky!
“These changes were introduced on 14 October, bringing us in line with competitors.”
So could you copy some more things from your competitors, like better CS, cheaper prices for symmetrical broadband, etc?
“These changes were introduced on 14 October, bringing us in line with competitors.”
That’s great! Now let’s talk about symmetrical upload speeds available at your competitors!
I somehow only hear this excuse when the quality of service provided being decreased.
If you’re in a Nexfibre area you can get upto 2Gbps download and services are also available with symmetrical speeds.
If you’re in a legacy HFC area, there’s historical and technical reasons why they can’t offer symmetrical uploads. Not just because they don’t want to make it available.
“Ah well, if our competitors are lowering their offering, it makes no sense for us to offer something better.”
AKA “Race to the bottom*
I’m not surprised. I’m paying £60 a month for Gig1, full TV package, full phone package, and two TV boxes, with Netflix.
How do they even make money?
They rinse the customers who don’t negotiate ever renewal.
I negotiated the arse out of VMo2 only to find I’d been moved to “with ads” and lost Sky Movies UHD
£101/m
Basically stonewalled when I queried.
After 25 years thru CableTel and NTL, I am ready to throw in the towel with VMo2
Virgin Media gonna Virgin Media.