Cancelling Sky. What now?

[OhWifey]

I'm just on hold to Sky after another ridiculous bill. I'm ready to cancel unless they offer me something quite special. I will get pay as you go Sky Sports through our Now TV dongle. Should I buy a Smart TV? Any other good TV and Broadband packages? I'm a bit stuck in the noughties so I don't know what the best alternative is. Been used to having phone/broadband/TV all through Sky for the last 10 years

On the subject of Sky, am I correct that you still need a dish for it? They've been promising Sky Q without it for a while, but I don't think it ever arrived.

They are moving to this. Slowly.

With no dish you are stuck with Now TV at 720p

Glad you started this thread OP. After talking for months about cancelling our Sky, our mind was made up after the box suddenly stopped working.
DH rang up to cancel and the lady on the phone didn’t even ask why. She just said no problem I’ll cancel it for you. No trying to negotiate a new deal or anything.
Lots of good alternatives suggested. Thanks all.

Sky will offer you a discount to stay; say no. Actually leave. It's after you've left that they start to send you increasingly good offers.

I've just signed back up to them actually after 2 years with another provider, because one of their Black Friday deals was so much better than any other offer anywhere.

I have a fire stick upstairs in my bedroom. That TV hasn't got any aerial socket in the wall to plug into. Does anyone know how I could watch live television with this set up?

You can watch live-ish TV (about 30 secs delay) via the iplayer app and the various alternatives: ITV Hub, All4 and My5.

Started with Sky due to terrible freeview reception, had a great deal of £50 for the first year including installation. Then of course it crept up and up to £20 a month.

cancelled and bought the only Freesat recording box available in the UK, the Humax. It is pretty shit - bad design, noisy, slow response, slow start, freezes quite a lot but as I said, no choice. This allows recording so never need to watch ads, can just zip through.

now have a smart TV with satellite too.

also have Now TV, (sky over internet) first six months were £25 in total which got through Game of Thrones. Now using up the Tesco vouchers for £9 a month of charges. Will reconsider once they've run out. Don't do sports or movies.

broadband and phone come from Plusnet who seem ok. Although the box was straining to provide TV over the wifi. We've run cables and it's now fine. Copper, not fibre.

Similar game plans work with Virgin - call to cancel, go through with it despite any deals they offer you to stay - then within about 72 hours they’ll ring you and beg you to stay and you can practically name your price and package!

We are downgrading sky as and when contracts come to an end. We had £65 for everything (phone, bb, full sky package with ultra hd) but then it doubled.

We have the basic package atm and use our fire stick with Kodi and another app sideloaded on. With Kodi and the iptv app we get everything including movies and sports, even box office, and all the team specific channels (Man U tv, Chelsea tv etc) for less than a tenner a month.

Every time our contract with Sky is up I phone to cancel and always get a great deal for being a loyal customer.

Dont take their first offer I'd you do decide to stay with them. When I renegotiated mine I told them to cancel because the offer wasnt good enough...funnily enough they were then able to find lots more money to take off of the price!

I have a NOW TV box.
I buy vouchers for Sky Entertainment channels - work out £5 a month. (£10 for 2 month voucher)
There are only a couple of shows I actually like so I only activate a voucher when they are on.
Sky movies is £7.50 a month if you buy the vouchers.(£15 for 2 month voucher)
I find after 2 months I have run out of things I want to watch, so I tend to only get a voucher to cover 2 months around Christmas, then Easter, then the summer holidays.

Kids channels are £3.99 a month if you want them.

No tv sports fans in this house so can't remember how much it is, but that seems to be the most expensive to access.

Netflix send me a try us free offer about once a year.
I do the free month then cancel.

I have Amazon Prime (got the annual membership when it was on offer) so also have all their tv.
It's far more than I can watch

Tescos have currently got Now tv boxes with a 1 month Entertainment, 1 month movies & 1 day sports pass for about £25 on offer.
Might get a better deal elsewhere though.

every time i phone up to cancel Sky I never get a great deal. Not once. I've been a customer on and off for the last 12 years ( much more on than off ) had BT for 12 mths and hated it, stuck with Freeview for 12 mths and hated it.
Now have Now TV stick and Netflix so 2 weeks ago I cancelled Sky ( again)
But I just know that when the new F1 season starts in March I will very likely cave in again...

I got the F1channel free and upgraded fibre for no extra cost last time.

I do always ask what they can offer me to stay.

Why don't you just try something other than sitting in front of the TV and get a life.. That is my advice!!

Freeview box for live telly, 99 quid or something it plugs into your satellite dish and that's that, no other payments.

A smart TV plus Netflix and that means I can catch up everything (and I love netflix). So that's what, 9 quid a month for the netflix?

Honestly Sky has had its day unless you're wedded to the sport.

Why don't you just try something other than sitting in front of the TV and get a life.. That is my advice!!

Judgemental much! I actually like sitting in front of the TV watching sport or a film, it fits in quite nicely with my life.

I've just changed my broadband to Sky and we're now paying £70 a month for TV (including sport and films) and broadband on one of their Black Friday deals

We have an Amazon fire stick and you can get apps to get pretty much anything you'd have watched before, plus more!

Cancel and you will get a good deal if you wait until the last day of the cancellation period.

I have a Youview Plus box which is like freeview except it has a recorder. So you can do series record, catch up, pause and rewind live tv etc. You can also access all the on demand and paid stuff through it like iplayer amazon tv and netflix. There’s an app for your phone so you can set things to record remotely.

One off cost (£150?) and no monthly costs.

No satellite sports or movies or prime series though, unless we bolt them on. But there’s plenty to watch if you’re not wedded to being able to watch everything you see advertised.

When I quit Sky, way back now, but I got to keep the box and got a freesat for sky card £20 odd quid which meant I could still record and get freeview channels.

I think it costs £10 a month just to keep the pause/record facility on the free channels now.

If you like to pause and record things you can get Freeview boxes which do this. Now TV if you Google for discounts you can get some really good deals, and as it's streaming you can pause etc.

I use a smart TV, now TV and Netflix. I'm never stuck for something to watch. My boyfriend had sky, I just used to flick through the channels thinking what a load of shite.

Just checked and horrified to see we're paying £127.50 for the same package as the OP, which she's now getting for £46.

MotherOfSoupDragons - what a massive waste of money!!!

@MockersFactCheckMN

To watch the Apprentice have a go at getting onto the iPlayer app a bit earlier if you've not used iPlayer before. I am pretty certain that it comes pre-installed. If not add it via your phone. I think you might need to set up a BBC login if you don't have one already.

Then just select the channel and choose "watch live" when the time comes.

We got rid of Sky ages ago and replaced it with a Humax Freesat box. We also have a Fire Stick.

If some of you are thinking about switching TV providers and/or buying Alexa devices it is worth looking to see what cashback Quidco are offering (3% on Alexa etc.)...