BT Vision racks up most TV complaints, Virgin Media a distant second: Updated

BT Vision has racked up the most complaints in Ofcom’s latest survey on pay TV customer satisfaction. 

Something of a David to Sky and Virgin Media’s twin pay TV Goliaths, BT Vision is still a relative newcomer in the market and commands a smaller share. 

Complaints made to Ofcom about BT Vision were six times greater than the industry average and the number of complaint calls was slightly up from the last quarter. Comparatively, Virgin Media and Sky’s complaints were slightly down from the last survey. Virgin Media’s volume of complaints is however still above the industry average. 

With the launch of BT’s new YouView-based TV service incorporating BT Sport, we’re expecting the trends to change. Not only will the new BT TV service provide a stronger content offering, it’ll only be available to the 13 million homes that can take BT Infinity fibre-based broadband. BT’s fibre broadband connections offer a much more stable streaming experience than their traditional copper-based ASDL counterparts so complaints about service should lessen accordingly. 

Those not able to get it due to still being on the old-school network may well get the hump at missing out on the sporting action, so there could be some moans generated from this as well. As BT’s fibre rollout continues apace, more people should be able to get the new-look BT Vision over time. BT has promised to connect two-thirds of the UK off its own back and has so far been awarded every regional superfast broadband contract going. 

Update: We’ve just received the following from a BT spokesperson: 

“BT Vision is growing rapidly. When you have more new customers you do see more problems in early life. Where customers have experienced problems, we have identified and fixed the causes. But we are not complacent – we are working towards even greater reliability and providing compelling and convenient sport, film and TV, that costs less and is better value than our competitors. During this quarter we introduced a new TV product, YouView and we also began the migration of existing BT Vision customers to an upgraded interface including the capability to receive pay TV channels.  Major changes such as these sometimes cause short term issues for customers who may have experienced disruption, but in the longer term we believe our customers will be much happier with their TV services as a result.”