Ofcom: Pay-TV complaints fall

A drop in pay-TV grievances was the sole driver behind an overall quarterly decrease in telecoms complaints submitted to the communications regulator between April and June 2026.

According to data published by Ofcom on 26 October 2026 covering the second quarter of the year, complaint levels for fixed broadband, landline, and mobile services held steady compared with the previous quarter. The downward trend across the wider sector was therefore dictated entirely by television customers lodging fewer disputes.

Complaint Handling Remains the Chief Culprit

While broadband, landline, and mobile complaints were predominantly triggered by network faults, service quality, and connection delays, television subscribers contacted the regulator for a different reason: how providers handled their initial grievances.

The figures reflect complaints escalated directly to Ofcom rather than total queries lodged internally with operators. Across the pay-TV market, the industry average settled at two complaints per 100,000 subscribers.

Provider Breakdown: EE and Virgin Media Top the League

Performance varied significantly across the four major pay-TV operators monitored in the report:

• EE: Recorded the highest volume at four complaints per 100,000 subscribers, double the industry average.
• Virgin Media: Followed in second place with three complaints per 100,000 subscribers.
• Sky: Matched the industry baseline with two complaints per 100,000 subscribers.
• TalkTalk: Generated the fewest issues by a substantial margin, registering 0.2 complaints per 100,000 subscribers.

For EE, the television figures compound a difficult quarter across parent group BT. EE was simultaneously named among the most complained-about broadband providers alongside BT, TalkTalk, and Vodafone—each posting seven complaints per 100,000 customers—while BT-owned Plusnet attracted the highest volume of landline complaints at ten per 100,000.

Virgin Media remains above the industry average for television, though its broader operation saw progress elsewhere. The operator recorded four complaints per 100,000 in broadband, making it the least complained-about provider in that category alongside Sky and Plusnet on five.

What the Data Shows

At four complaints per 100,000 customers for the worst-performing operator, raw escalation rates for television remain low relative to broadband and landline infrastructure. However, the fact that dispute handling—rather than signal faults or set-top hardware failures—drives viewers to Ofcom demonstrates that administrative friction after an issue arises remains the core point of failure for pay-TV operations.

Full quarterly datasets and historical comparisons are available via Ofcom's Service Quality Report.