Immediate Media Reviews 

Despite numerous emails over a number of months the Radio Times which used to arrive Tuesday each week now either does not arrive, arrives after the relevant week has started or later in the week. This continues despite an earlier suggestion that Royal Mail were to be replaced. Really frustrating and no explanation as to what steps are being taken to resolve the problem.

A useless company that does not deserve any stars, a non existent customer service. Failed Despite taking a six month subscription I have only received one magazine.
I have contacted the company, via their call centre in South Africa, and at the last call they agreed their service was not good enough. I rang again today only to be told they have no record of any refund.
It’s a great shame the BBC have lowered their standards to use such an incompetent company and they should have a duty of care to loyal Gardeners World followers to make sure they monitor the distribution of a publication displaying their logo.

They have agreed several times on the phone and email I am due a refund but despite chasing them many times over 9 months I have received no refund. Shameful.

Please cancel my subscription.
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Password reset not working.
Also, I HATE auto renewals. Have integrity and switch off that default.

Also have integrity and say “prices are increasing”.. not “prices are changing”.

Goodness knows how Immediate Media retains this franchise: the customer service is non-existent, whilst the email functionality and website are dreadful. The company doubtless operates in this way to encourage early subscription renewal and overpayment. Wake up BBC franchisor and appoint a replacement.

Charged me £12 for gardeners magazaines for 6 months and i only got 1.months. then charged me 6 month renewal after 5 months when i didnt even get the first 6 months worth and the payment wasnt due yet. Customer service is terrible and based in south africa apparently... since writing this review they have taken another £12. So thats now £36 for one month/magazine!

Immediate Media wrongly thought my subscription had expired as they sent me emails with differing offers to 'resubscribe' rather than 'renew'.
Having resubscribed I now find that for the next month I will be getting two identical issues per week because having just spoken to their call centre they are unable to delay the start of the new subscription until the old one has expired.
Their attitude seemed to be that it was all my fault.
Baffling and incompetent from start to finish.

Thanks to Immediate Media for their reply - let's see whether it's followed up with the appropriate action over the next weeks and months.

The requested information has been provided (04/06)

09/06 - Not surprised that 2 identical copies of Radio Times have just dropped onto my doormat.

More relieved than happy to report that Immediate Media finally appear to have resolved the subscription issues.

Signed up for a years subscription of Radio Times only to be charged again after 6 months.
Called to query it and they said it was a 6 months subscription.
Told them I would never have agreed to pay the price for only 6 months as it was double what I used to pay by non direct debit.
Pointed out that they were advertising 6 months subscription for half of what they were charging me but couldn't explain why.
Promised a refund within 3-5 days but after reading reviews here, I don't reckon I will be receiving it soon.

UPDATE; Surprisingly, my refund came through the next day.
No change to rating though as it's immoral to charge double to what is being advertised for a 6 months subscription especially as many customers will be elderly and possibly unaware.

SECOND UPDATE.
Credit where due.
The company has admitted their error in charging me again after 6 months and made a generous good will offer.
Excellent communication from Ritu in customer services.

They are the very worst company I have ever come across.
After cancelling a subscription following my father’s death, they owed me over £100 which they said they would refund in December. I’ve had to tell them on 8 separate occasions that my father had died. Following numerous phone calls (over a dozen) and a similar amount of emails chasing up for this, they unbelievably took a payment of the amount which I was due rather than refund it to me! They then implied I couldn’t tell the difference between a debit and a credit. My bank refunded the unlawful payment they took from my account, and today after threatening court action I have at long last, 4 months later than it should have been paid, received a refund. Supervisors are never available and never return calls. All communication from them is delayed, and they clearly don’t look at previous correspondence, so you r d up going though the whole saga every time you contact them. They promise refunds which do t then happen, unless you are prepared to be very persistent and threaten court action.
Anyone looking to take out a subscription for Radio Times, etc, my advice is don’t. The company is toxic, unprofessional, and I would rate it in minus terms if Trust Pilot would let me.

The worst company and customer service.
I bought a years magazine subscription however was told due to an error on the system it had been cancelled by them, yet no refund was provided and they were unable to undo the error. Over 30 contacts later and I am still no closer to receiving a refund. Often my emails get ignored or I am told it has been escalated to higher managers although this is just lies. Truly the worst company to buy from. My difficulties have been going on for several months.

I cancelled Good Food at the end of January to change to Olive.
I am still awaiting a refund after over 2 months despite many phone calls and emails - Nothing received!
At the same time I paid a 5 monthly subscription for Olive and after waiting for over 2 months no magazines have been received.
Terrible customer service all round and not to be trusted.

The people you speak to at customer services try to do their best and are helpful. However basically they could do nothing regarding my refund issue. They said all the right things using their 'flow charts' but were unable to put me through to the Finance Dept. or even a Manager! This started back in October 2025 and it is only after raising a dispute with my bank that I have just received the refund for a year's subscription of Radio Times which I did not receive. Even the bank did not get a reply from them. In effect they still have not refunded my money as it came from my bank!! How can this be right? I actually think that this company is running some sort of scam cheating people out of their money. I will now do the sensible thing and buy directly from a shop. STEER CLEAR OF IMMEDIATE MEDIA !!

Been chasing for a 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 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.

THREE payments for a gift subscription for HistoryExtra magazine were taken, with none of them resulting in subscriptions being confirmed or delivered.
I've sent at least 12 emails, called four times (I'm in New Zealand so the UK timezone isn't great), and nothing has happened at all. They have stolen $501.36 NZD from me with no goods sent. This was from 2 x payments taken 12 Dec 26 and 1 x payment on 25 Feb 26. I was told the web portal has been 'having issues'.
The worst customer service I have experienced in my life - and I'm still no closer to getting my money back.
They did manage to sign me up for a new sub over the phone on 25 Feb 26 - they took the money from my credit card, send me a subscription number but no magazine has turned up! So even when it's a manual process i.e. not through the portal, it's a scam. They also charged me $30 more for that subscription than what they quoted me over the phone.
If I could give a zero star rating, I would.
Update: 23/4/26: still no refud/contact from them. On reflection re my call centre interaction with them, they're using Agentic AI. We're all screwed then.

Whatever you do, don’t buy magazines with this company. It’s that simple, 2 reasons….

1. You probably won’t get it on time because they use Royal Mail, which is now effectively defunct as a reliable service. We ordered Radio Times, but often received it after the TV programs had been broadcast.

2. When we cancelled a new subscription last October for £112 they agreed to refund it but we are still waiting. We have had dozens of emails and phone calls. They are always friendly and helpful but no money ever turns up. We are investigating using the small claims court or employing bailiffs ….anything.

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

Immediate Media steals money from pensioners. Having signed up for a subscription where only half of the magazines were delivered I had £59 taken early from my account before the cancellation date. Since 3rd March I have tried to get this returned through emails and phone calls. I am on a low income and feel helpless. One man called David Hodges at the Radio Times said he'd look into this and then proceeded to ignore my follow up emails. Nobody is taking accountability or ownership. My friend tried to follow up for me and was questioned about her gender!

EDIT: Have reported Immediate (haha) Media to Trading Standards. Let's see what happens next. Nothing good for them I would hope.

I've been a subscriber to BBC History magazine (now called History Extra) for decades. In the past few years I've also enjoyed content (history videos, courses and articles) on the History Extra website which you are supposed to be able to access when you subscribe to the magazine. Ever since my subscription was renewed in Nov 25 I've been unable to get subscriber website access because of IT problems following the migration of subscription renewal from BuySubscriptions to Immediate Media. I've been contacting the Immediate Media helpdesk on a regular basis for the last 4 months. They now admit there's a problem and that it also affects other Immediate Media magazines but so far the IT team seem unable to rectify the situation, or indeed tell the helpdesk how long this will take to sort. Meanwhile HistoryExtra will lose subscribers as those who've just renewed their subscriptions find they can't access the website content. They really need to contract some IT experts with the right capabilities to solve this problem. What a way to run a business ! (Rob Attar, Editor of HistoryExtra please note this situation - your product is being let down)

I had a subscription for Radio Times. Suddenly they stopped being delivered. Despite several calls to their call centre, the issue was not resolved. I decided to cancel my subscription and demanded a full refund. Despite several more calls this was not received. After writing to the CEO informing them the I was going to sue them through the Small Claims Court, they coughed up. This company should be shut down.

Terrible, expensive and poor service
Took 30 mins to get two addresses changed as I could not get onto my subscription management page. so had to ring.
I have also cancelled these subscriptions as they are at least a third more expensive.