Virgin Media UK Rename Stream TV to Flex and Add £5 Monthly Fee
Customers of UK ISP Virgin Media’s (O2) and certain pay TV, broadband, phone and or mobile bundles, primarily those that usually add their ‘Stream’ service, may have noticed that the provider renamed this from ‘Stream‘ to ‘Flex‘ this week. The change is partly cosmetic, but for new customers there’s now an extra £5 monthly charge.
Until now if a customer wanted to add Virgin Media’s Stream TV (box) to their package then there was just a single one-off £35 activation fee to pay and no additional monthly cost, unless you chose to add a premium TV subscription. Otherwise, Stream is just a streaming TV box that gives customers access to lots of UK Freeview TV channels, the usual apps (iPlayer, YouTube etc.) and the ability to add Virgin’s own premium TV content.
However, since Monday, the name has changed to ‘Flex’ (the set-top-box itself is still called a ‘Stream Box‘) and the one-off activation fee has been reduced from £35 to £10. So far so good, but Virgin Media has also introduced a monthly £5 charge for new customers, which for those expecting to keep using the device for a while may seem like poor value for money.
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The good news is that existing ‘Stream’ customers will not have to pay the new charge (Virgin Community Forum). The name change itself may have been intended to avoid a conflict with other pay TV brands, such as Sky Stream, although the official line is that ‘Flex’ simply reflects the flexibility for customers to alter the premium content and subscriptions they take every 30 days. But we preferred the old name.
Stream from Virgin Media customers may have noticed a message in recent bills advising of an upcoming name change to their service. We can confirm that from today it will be called Flex. There is nothing to worry about, and this won’t affect your service in any way – you will still be able to enjoy your favourite entertainment in exactly the same way as you do today, and any subscriptions you have added will be unaffected. Your equipment (TV box) will still be known as the Stream Box. As a result of this change, you will now see Flex on your bills, and areas of your account view within My Virgin Media will be renamed too (E.g. “My Flex Plan”).
Sadly, Flex isn’t the only change, with some of Virgin Media’s premium TV subscription add-ons having also experienced a price increase (these hikes were previously announced).
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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Straight from the corporate BS dictionary:
“We can confirm that from today it will be called Flex. There is nothing to worry about, and this won’t affect your service in any way – you will still be able to enjoy your favourite entertainment in exactly the same way as you do today, and any subscriptions you have added will be unaffected.”
except we now charge you £5 per month, £60 per year just to have this box that does not even record programmes.
It reminds me of Ring in the US putting up the Protect Plus from $200 to $420 as reported in various forums – similar type of wording….
Do still need to record stuff that is being repeated all the time?
Are they still limiting it to one per account?
Customers with an XGS-PON based full fibre connection that are on a Mega TV bundle can have up to 6 Stream boxes. The first additional box is £10 per month and any subsequent additional boxes are an extra £5 per month each.
I was considering getting one just to play with and see how it compares to a regular android box with a view to maybe taking out premium channels when my Sky contract ends next year but a fiver a month for a box with no extra channels included seems poor value IMO.
I wonder if Sky took out any protection for their name of Stream and… well… bad luck, VM?
Also just to add I see the £5pm charge has been added to Virgin Media’s “Essential Broadband” subscription too. Previously you got the 54Mbps broadband and Stream for £20pm however its now £25 with the newly renamed Flex Box.
£25 for 50Mbps and the VM equivalent of a £35 Fire Stick is not really in the spirit of the social tariffs is it
Yeah my uncle a few months ago wanted to leave Virgin Media till he managed to haggle down an offer of the 250 Broadband plan to £19 and before that he had the 125 for £25. He only wanted to switch because I joined a new ISP called BRSK that came to my area and when I googled them and checked their availability his address was there too. BRSK at the time was selling gigabit symmetrical broadband (with symmetrical broadband upload is near identical to download speeds) for £30 and Virgin Media wanted to charge me £50 for my 250 plan although they did eventually offer £28 with unlimited landline calls. Which we refused because who uses a landline in 2024. Everyone in my house has a smartphone.
“Which we refused because who uses a landline in 2024.”
ROFL, consider yourself lucky as I still have to deal with this **** with older family members.
Out of the 4, 3 of them also have smartphones.
Moral of the story is to go and take your business elsewhere.
There are 160 channels now on flex rather than the 90 odd that we’re available previously I believe
Had one on old contract, never used, got given one on new contact, and still don’t use it. the Apps on my samsung TV work perfectly fine o.0 i feel no need for it at all.