I’m currently with Virgin Media for my digital TV, Broadband (unlimited downloads) & Phone (free weekend calls).

The basic contract cost is £37 per month (includes line rental).

Is there anything out there significantly cheaper (i.e. £5+/month) that’d be worth switching to?

i’m on a similar deal with Virgin, but haven’t left yet as still in contract.
the best alternative i found was with Talk Talk. try looking on their website, the offers may have changed now though.

I’m just looking to sign up to virgin TV to get the on demand box thing. currently have the broadband and as it is cable i would have though anything else would be a step down in performance. Is that right?

I could never advise anyone to go with talk talk, their customer service is appalling!
I was with Sky for all 3 services at my old house, but have just switched to virgin for phone and broadband when I moved as sky could not offer me the package I was already on. Value wise there wasn’t a lot out there to beat them when I searched, and no one could touch them for broadband performance (I’ve taken 30Mb broadband).

Cancel the TV. You still get all the freeview channels, and if it goes wrong you get free call out & fix. You just stop paying for it. We pay £27.49 for phone tv & broadband.

What BigJohn said.