Need Digital TV? Ready to switch over?
Get fair, unbiased advice in a language you understand
so you make the right choice.
Best for kids
If you want to occupy the children with educational and entertaining programming, then digital TV offers channels just for kids that will keep little ones and slightly bigger ones out of trouble on rainy days.
Every digital TV package available, from Freeview to the most expensive on offer have a range of options, so we’ve broken each provider and package down to show you exactly what’s available and the age range they’re best suited for.
Sky
Adding the Kids mix to your TV package gives you access to 17 channels ranging from Baby TV, a 24-hour channel for parents and babies up to three years old, to Trouble, a channel providing comedy and drama for teens. It has a selection of dedicated cartoon channels showing everything from the classics like Tom & Jerry and Top Cat, to more recent hits like He-Man and Dragonball Z and also features the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
The Sky Kids mix is a good choice for families with teenagers as well as younger children as it offers something for all age ranges and can be bought as part of a package including any of the other mixes. Sky’s pricing depends on how many mixes you take, It costs £16 a month for one mix, going up by £1 for each additional mix you add. The See Speak Surf bundle comes with all six mixes.
Click here for more information on Sky. Or visit www.Sky.com for the Sky website.
Virgin Media
Virgin Media’s kid’s selection varies depending on which size TV package you take. The Size:XL package, which costs a total of £31.50 a month including a Virgin Media home phone, offers 12 children’s channels covering favourites Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, as well as 24-hour cartoon channels and Trouble for any teenagers in the house. You get a total of 125 channels with the Size:XL package.
The next size down, the Size:L package reduces the number of channels down to six, covering Boomerang - the classic cartoon channel - Cartoon Network, CBBC and CBeebies from the BBC, CITV - the children’s channel from ITV and Nickelodeon. The Size:L package costs a total of £20 a month and includes a Virgin Media phone (which must be taken) and offers a total of 85 channels.
Virgin Media’s cheapest TV package is the Size:M package which costs a total of £11 and includes a phone line (which must be taken) but offers only those kid’s channels that you would get with Freeview - covering off CBBC and CBeebies, and CITV. The full package offers the same channels as Freeview, along with a couple of extras like Virgin Central and pay-per-view on demand and you also get a Virgin Media branded set-top box.
Customers on any of the Virgin Media digital TV packages also have the option of paying an additional £5 a month for Disney Cinematic, showing Disney movies and cartoons, or £3 a month for Baby TV aimed at under-threes and their parents.
BT’s digital TV service, BT Vision is essentially a free service for BT Total Broadband customers who, after having the extra equipment installed, can use their broadband connection to receive the Freeview channels available in their area and access pay-per-view programming. It also offers subscription packages on a month-by-month basis.
The BT Vision kid’s package is £6 a month and you can opt out whenever you want. For this price you get access to all of the children’s programmes that are normally pay-per-view at 49p per episode for a 24 hour rental. These cover pre-school and cartoons, showing everything from Bob the Builder to SpongeBob SquarePants and Samurai Jack to Barney and The Wiggles for younger children. In addition to the kid’s package, you do get the Freeview children’s channels CBBC, Cbeebies and CITV, too.
You can also add the TV on Demand and TV Replay package which costs £9 a month, the Music package for £6 a month, or all three for £14 a month, saving you £7. It has also launched a Sports package at £4 a month and movies are available to hire from £1.99.
Because the packages run on a monthly basis, you can simply subscribe for the duration of a particular series, or during the kid’s holiday time, if you want.
Freeview is by far the cheapest way to access digital TV and for a one-off payment of as little £20 you can get a set-top box which will give you access to over 30 channels. More channels are in the pipeline and customers can rescan their set-top box whenever they want to see if more have been added to the Freeview spectrum. Click here to find out how to rescan for new channels.
At the moment, Freeview offers CBBC, CBeebies and CITV children’s programming.
