Virgin Media is doing its annual October favour for families again, opening up its Kids TV bundle to all customers at no extra cost throughout the month.
The offer runs from today (October 3) until October 31, covering the half-term break and giving access to channels that normally cost £5 per month.
If you’re a Virgin Media TV customer on any package, you’ll automatically get access to Sky Kids, Cartoon Network, Baby TV, Nickelodeon, and the rest of the kids’ lineup without needing to do anything.
This has become something of an October tradition for Virgin Media. They ran the same promotion last year and the previous years, timing it perfectly with school holidays when parents are scrambling to keep children entertained without spending a fortune.
It’s a helpful gesture, particularly given that Virgin Media just announced price changes yesterday – including bumping annual increases from £3.50 to £4 per month for new and re-contracting customers.
What’s Included
The free access covers Virgin Media’s full Kids TV bundle, which includes both live channels and thousands of hours of on-demand content.
The channels included are:
- Baby TV (703)
- Cartoon Network HD (704)
- Cartoon Network +1 (705)
- Cartoonito (706)
- Sky Kids HD (707)
- Nickelodeon HD (712)
- Nick +1 (713)
- Nick Jr. (715)
- Nick Jr. Too (716)
- Nicktoons (717)
- Boomerang (730)
- Boomerang +1 (731)
Popular shows available include Pip and Posy’s Spooktacular Party on Sky Kids, The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball on Cartoon Network, SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon, and Peppa Pig on Nick Jr, along with plenty of other programming aimed at keeping various age groups occupied.
Most of these channels are ad-free, which is a bonus when you’re trying to avoid children being bombarded with toy adverts every ten minutes.
The on-demand libraries mean you’re not tied to broadcast schedules either.
If your child wants to watch the same episode of PAW Patrol seventeen times in a row, the option is there – though whether that’s a blessing or a curse depends on your tolerance for animated rescue dogs.
How It Works
If you’re an existing Virgin Media TV customer, the channels should simply appear in your lineup from today. This works whether you have a TV 360 box or one of the newer Stream boxes.
You can watch on your main TV, or through the Virgin TV Go app on tablets and phones.
The app lets you register up to five devices and stream on two simultaneously, which is useful if you’ve got multiple children wanting different content at the same time.
The app also includes parental controls with PIN protection, so you can keep an eye on what’s being watched and prevent younger children from stumbling into age-inappropriate content.
Virgin Media’s Busy Month
Virgin Media has been quite active with updates lately. Last week they finally rolled out their long-awaited visual search upgrade for Stream and TV 360 boxes, replacing text-heavy search results with image-based tiles that make finding content considerably easier.
Then yesterday’s pricing overhaul brought some welcome additions alongside the cost increases.
All TV bundles now include Netflix Standard with Ads as standard – previously this would have cost an extra £5.99 per month. Sport customers finally get Sky Sports HD at no extra cost, ending the frankly ridiculous £7 monthly surcharge Virgin Media used to charge for HD channels in 2025.
Broadband-only packages at M500 and Gig1 speeds now bundle Netflix as well, which is genuinely useful if you were planning to subscribe anyway.
The catch, of course, is that annual price increase jumping from £3.50 to £4 per month. That’s an extra £4 added to your bill every April while you’re under contract, which compounds over time.
Whether the Netflix bundling and HD upgrades offset those higher annual increases depends entirely on whether you actually wanted those extras in the first place.
This kids’ channels promotion fits into that pattern of Virgin Media trying to add value where they can, even as overall costs inch upward. It’s temporary, yes, but it’s also useful timing for families dealing with school holidays.
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