Radio Times Reviews 185

On Saturday I emailed Radio Times to complain that I had received an envelope containing advertising material but no Radio Times. On Sunday morning I received a personalised reply, apologising, offering to send a copy and with a link to the online version. My replacement copy duly arrived with the following week’s copy on Tuesday. This was clearly a fault with an automated system, yet the response was immediate, polite and kind. Well done Radio Times!

Subscriptions.
RT now have changed rules on suspending your subscriptions due to being away from home, now you can only suspend your deliveries 4 weeks every 6 months.They feel that have the right to dictate when you can be absent from your home for whatever reason I for one have now cancelled my subscription

Missing delivery yet again. It's Tuesday, a pointless email about the next issue instead of a link for pdf to download.
NEW POLICY ON REFUNDS; no refunds after 14 days from start of new Subscription.
Can't even login to my subscription account.
When my sub runs out (which has been extended more times than I can remember since royal mail changed their letters policy) I'll use my local newsagent for delivery; it works out cheaper!

Same as many other users – totally rubbish service. Three weeks missing deliveries, with broken promises of replacement copies (by courier – which never happened).
Either a total shambles of an organisation, or just totally dishonest. Or both. AVOID.

The subscription and delivery service is unreliable. Radio Times does not arrive regularly on Tuesdays now, in addition, I can't access the digital version. It suddenly stopped allowing access and is showing a charge! I have written to BBC Radio Times and I'm waiting for a response, but I'm not hopeful, and my thoughts now are that I will cancel my subscription when it becomes due in July. Sad about this because I've recieved it for many years. On top of this, there is now no price discount advantage because it's the same price at newsagents and elsewhere now. Overall, I'm very disappointed and very angry at this increasingly poor service from the BBC and Radio Times.

It doesn't even deserve one star.
I can cancelled in Feb and gave my bank details on 3rd for a manual refund to be done.
Now 10th April and despite being told on 13 March it had been processed and would take 14 working days to reach my bank account, nothing has been received!!!
I have been promised callbacks and emails to no avail.
I have had to give my bank details again today and have been promised a refund today or Monday.
The callcentre is based in South Africa along with the finance department....
Why such a huge delay??? Disgusting customer service.... I wouldn't even buy one if it wasn't for my 93 year old disabled mum using it as can't manage the digital copy that I got directed to when I contacted them regarding non deliveries.
I will ring every day until I get my refund!!!
Update 13th April - called again to be told another 5 to 10 working days!!

Don't sign up to a subscription, customer service is appalling

The worst support I have ever had to the point of cancelling the subscrption of 20 + years and writing this review (which I rarely do). Paused the subs to go on holiday in Oct 2025 and still haven't managed to get owed issues restarted or a refund. It's now April 10th 2026...
Update on phone call just ended with them. After 5 months of no action I'm told they changed their system. I had previously been told I would get a refund for issues owed. I was then offered issues to cover the number owed. That didn't happen either. Today I have been told I can't have a refund and I would only get credit for issues if I renewed my subscription. Otherwise I don't get anything despite being in credit when we went on holiday. Wouldn't let me speak to a manager either...

17th April sent the subscription number to you. I hope you can do rhe right thing here for an 86 year old customer and provide a refund.
Been chasing Immediate Media for a Radio Times refund since December 25. Spoke to about 8 different people all who tell me will be done and to wait 10 to 14 days and it never arrives. Rang today and definitely been promised another as they have a new system and will work this time. My elderly mother who has had to move into a care home, hasn't had copies of the radio times since early December and had paid a full subscription which we cancelled mid December. This company lies and holds onto funds and is terrible to deal with do not sign up for anything with them.

Not received RT this week. And have regular missed deliveries. Phoned them. Their customer service assistant, Gugu, refused to send a replacement or give me a refund. Asked me to ring again on Friday. By that time it will be too late! Asked for the company address to make an online money claim and she didn’t know. Asked her to put me through to someone who knew the address of their company. She said no one knows! How do they get away with it??

Who writes the film reviews?
I know we all have opinions but whoever is responsible for the reviews in the RT need to get out more.

Having been born in the early 60s I think I’ve watched a lot of films & enjoyed most.
The star ratings on some reviews are so off, I’ve come to think the author is a stuffed up person who’s nearly or already pensionable & brought up on old starchy b&w British films.
I refer to the RT for scheduling only, no longer do I take any notice of the rating given.

Since the start of this year, 5 issues of my Radio Times magazine have disappeared. Response from customer service (we will reply within 72 WORKING hours - open from 9am to 5pm so this equates to 9 days not including Saturday and SUnday which is not much good when you want to know what is on telly tomorrow night!) has been "I’m genuinely sorry for how upsetting and frustrating this situation has been for you." but no offer of additional copies of the magazine or compensation. Before the new customer services started up this year, if an issue was missing it was an easy matter to contact Radio Times who immediately sent a PDF of the magazine to your email address. Not great but I was happy with this. New customer services - offer meaningless platitudes and apologies but don't offer anything to compensate.

Another edition not arrived until 3 days into the week it is for. When I reported on the Friday that it had not appeared I did get through to someone quite quickly. Yet AGAIN I was told to download it from the app. Yet AGAIN I said the app does not work - I enter my subscriber number to "Restore Purchase" and nothing happens. So the agent sent me a link to the missing edition. Oh that is just wonderful - but have you tried to read a magazine like this on a 5" mobile screen? That is not why I took out a print subscription! Especially with eyes in their 8th decade! What a load of rubbish this whole thing is. I will 100% never renew this subscription.

I did suggest instead of posting copies they should issue some sort of ID card when we pay a subscription that allowed us instead to collect a copy from a newsagent. The shop could receive the saved postage/distribution cost as a commisssion.

UPDATE 17 April 2026 as a response to the response below from RT asking me to email them at Feedback. You have had plenty of feedback & I have already wasted enough of my time on this. After making contact with several different people via phone or email they have all given me different information, contradicting each other and the information on the RT website regarding accessing a digital issue. If I wanted a digital issue I can actually access it for free on my library app, as I have done on and off for several years. I took the decision to pay for a print edition thinking it would be a much better product for me. Waste of money, waste of time.

My latest edition did arrive on time, followed next day by the out of date previous week's edition. For which I was offered a credit against my next renewal. There will be ZILCH chance of my ever renewing.

Other reviews say it all really. Pay for a subscription and it arrives half the time. No replies to emails or phone.

Absolute rubbish. Trying to view more details of a programme and a pop up add gives me as choice to register or go back to listings so impossible to see programme details. Worse than a local newspaper site.

I cancelled my subscription last October after the direct debit being taken for a ridiculous amount. They stopped the magazine immediately and said I would get a refund for the issues I would not receive (over £100). When this did not happen I emailed 3 times and did not receive a response. I have called their "Customer Service" over 8 times since Jan and have been told numerous times my refund will come through in x number of days. I wait...then call again when nothing has been received...and the cycle continues again. Customer Service blame the Finance Team and they don't take calls from the public. There is no-one in authority to speak to and I have been promised call backs at least 3 times and that has never happened. There is no complaints procedure so I have no choice but to make another call again. This is shocking customer service and I really don't know what to do!
Update 18/04 - "Can you please respond to our request for more information so we can look into this please" message on my review...I have not received anything asking for more info and the links attached to the emails don't work!
I have however received a reply to my latest email to Radio Times on 31/03 stating I would receive a refund in 10 - 15 days. 11 days have now passed (taking into account the bank holidays)...but I am patiently waiting expecting the refund within the 15 days!

WHERE DID THINGS GO SO WRONG?
I have subscribed to Radio Times for more years than I care to remember but customer service appears to have been totally abandoned.
I have been waiting for a partial refund on my latest subscription since my initial phone call on 18 Feb.
I was assured I would receive a ‘manual refund’ in two weeks maximum.
Since then I have called Customer Service for a second time/emailed Feedback at Radio Times/emailed the Editor at Radio Times. NO ONE HAS BOTHERED TO EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE ME!
I understand the magazine is now owned by Immediate Media - sadly the only thing ‘immediate’ about this company is the speed with which they take the bi-annual subscription from your bank account. After that, any problems and you can whistle.

If I could give a minus score I would. The subscription service have messed us around so much. Failed deliveries on numerous occasions. Gave me an offer when I wanted to cancel. We stupidly accepted and now get an email to say it has been cancelled. Customer service is diabolical.

We took out the 10 issues for £10 subscription last year. There were no problems until we cancelled the direct debit to avoid us automatically then having to pay for a full year's subscription (too expensive) We made it clear at the time that there were still two issues left on our subscription and these should be delivered as usual. The first issue arrived okay but we never did receive the last issue. We phoned and emailed several times and were either told that the issue would be sent or that our subscription had finished and we had cancelled the direct debit. We got the feeling that no one was actually checking the details in our emails, and any assurance that the outstanding issue would be sent could not be believed. We have only lost a £1 but it's the principle that matters and we can longer have any trust in the Radio Times subscription process. Suspect that the call centre may not be in the UK.

After my post "Avoid" of 27th Febuary I was contacted by David Hodges of RT who explained the delivery problems they've been experiencing (Invariably caused by Royal Mail) and apologised for the loss of issues over the preceding few months.
He then offered to cancel our subscription and make a full refund which we accepted and has now been completed.

Despite the recent problems I really cannot complain about the customer service that Mr. Hodges has provided hence the rating.

Just awful. I have been trying to link and manage my gift subscription since the website changed in October last year. It won’t link at all and I’ve been passed from pillar to post with no way to manage or access my subscription online. I have sent many emails and made several phone calls and still the issue is not resolved. Usually my emails are ignored, other times I get AI generated responses that make no sense whatsoever. When I get through to a human they say they have no record of any correspondence. It’s a nightmare dealing with this company and I will definitely NOT be renewing once the annual subscription ends. It’s a shame as the gift recipient loves the magazine but I can’t be dealing with this stress. All I want to do is access and manage my subscription!