Sky tv-price rise again! Alternatives??

[QueenLagertha]

Sick of sky tv increases. A couple of weeks ago I negotiated a small decrease when they put my contract price up again. Then yesterday they sent me an email about price rises in April. Plus I see they stuck a £10 admin fee on my account for recent negotiation which I done online.

DH and DS (nearly age 4) watch a few channels on the sky. I only watch Netflix really. So I'll have a battle on my hands cancelling it. And maybe I'm being unreasonable just because I don't use it.

Any suggestions for other services we could switch to?

Freesat? Uses the same cabling as sky but without any subscription

DH watches discovery channel. Does freesat have it? @ThatsALotOfPassionfruit
Sorry I'm being really lazy when I could probably look it up myself.

I pay £45 with virgin for the ‘maxit’ tv package with 190 channels including discovery and the fast broadband (plus landline which we don’t use).

I’m also with o2 for my sim contract, and I got double data because they’ve joined up (worth looking at if you’re thinking of changing phone providers at any point, I changed my tariff and pay £8 for 15gb now whereas I was paying more for less before!)

Also if you know someone with Virgin they can refer you and you both get £50

It boggles my mind how much people pay for Sky. £100+ a month just to be able to watch TV?

@Florenz 🤦🏼‍♀️ I know. Madness. Ours isn't quite there yet. £63 per month including broadband. But that's for a basic package. Happy enough to pay £50. Thank you @PureBlackVoid I will definitely take a look at Virgin.

Some people (like us) don’t do a lot else so if they can afford it why not? We pay Sky £133 a month which includes the sport and BT Sport which are main things we want, Netflix, broadband and phone.

Amazon fire stick. Costs about £35 to buy equipment depending on which one you want and if you have Amazon prime already then you get some free shows. It’s more pay as you go. You can add subscriptions like Disney at about £6 per month. Also can watch bbc iPlayer etc. we love it and have three sticks for our house. Never will go back to normal tv.

Have a look at the Now TV entertainment package, it's a tenner a month, I don't know if it has Discovery on, but there's almost certainly a way of getting discovery or very similar content without having full Sky.

Or you can try and negotiate with Sky again? Have a look on MSE for full tips on how to reduce your TV costs.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

Some people (like us) don’t do a lot else so if they can afford it why not? We pay Sky £133 a month which includes the sport and BT Sport which are main things we want, Netflix, broadband and phone.

Because even if you can afford it, in most cases there's a way to get the same content, or almost the same content for a lot less.

Unless you are very wealthy, or don't care about making the best of your money, it's really worth thinking about reducing the cost.

I pay £45 to sky for everything except broadband. Tell them take it or leave it.

Because even if you can afford it, in most cases there's a way to get the same content, or almost the same content for a lot less.

Unless you are very wealthy, or don't care about making the best of your money, it's really worth thinking about reducing the cost.

It was a deal. At the time the best offer was £100 a month for everything except Sky Cinema and I later added BT Sport for the Ashes. I’ll contact Sky nearer the end of my contract. I looked at Now TV but it would work out more expensive and at the time I couldn’t have HD with it.

I think you can get some discovery channels on Disney Plus?

Does a freesat box let you watch live tele? Or is it just all downloading ?

Discovery + streaming service is only 4.99 a month OP

I have sky just in one room.

I did look at cancelling but for me, £22 for Sky Signature plus the facility to be able to record programmes makes it worthwhile.

I have Disney plus free and l got Amazon for the delivery aspect during covid.

You can watch live tv on freesat @MonicaGellerBing

No idea on discovery on freesat, I think not but as others have said Disney+ and Now Tv might do it. You can usually get both for about a fiver a month each

Thanks all. DH is looking apprehensive here. A creature of habit! We only have sky in one room. And we don't even be in the house during the day! We really really don't need it. Now I just need to persuade him

If he's determined to keep it you can always agree that he pays for it out of personal money instead of family money. Then the cost won't affect the family budget and he can decide if the cost is worth it.

Of course, if you don't have enough spare money to allow him sufficient personal money to pay for it while keeping up with joint bills/savings and the same amount of personal money for you, that's a good indicator that you can't really keep up with the expensive Sky service.

There is a website called cordbusters.co.uk which explains how to save money on your TV. Also a section on moneysavingexpert about it (Martin Lewis's website).

With Sky the best way to get a deal is by cancelling. You have to give a month's notice, and towards the end they will probably come back to you with cut price deals. You have to sound like you really mean it though and hold your nerve...

I got a deal a year ago, £14 for the Sky Signature package and currently I have a short term deal on Sky Cinema at £5 a month, which I will cancel when it reverts to full price.

Good luck OP, hope you are successful in persuasion.

Cancel Sky and subscribe to Discovery Plus instead. There's an offer atm, just £30 for a year.
auth.discoveryplus.com/gb/product?flow=purchase

I would also recommend buying a Roku stick, which you plug into your TV and use to watch streaming services including Netflix etc. The remote is so easy to use that my 4yo can use it (we have set up a child profile for him on Netflix).

@Tractordiggerdump

Amazon fire stick. Costs about £35 to buy equipment depending on which one you want and if you have Amazon prime already then you get some free shows. It’s more pay as you go. You can add subscriptions like Disney at about £6 per month. Also can watch bbc iPlayer etc. we love it and have three sticks for our house. Never will go back to normal tv.

This. We dithered for years about leaving Sky. Then we had a great offer for much better broadband with no line rental, ditched our landline, bought a fire stick and honestly, haven’t noticed any difference other than we’ve saved so much money.

Sky are massive rip off merchants. Obvs they offered us a great deal to stay, but I was completely fed up with their constant increasing of prices and had just had enough.

@AnotherEmma we have a smart tv do we still need a stick/external drive?

Are you in your 14 day window from your contract starting?

You might find you have to pay exit charges etc , you may be better waiting until your contract is up and then leaving.

[quote QueenLagertha]@AnotherEmma we have a smart tv do we still need a stick/external drive?[/quote]
No, if you have a smart TV you probably don't need a streaming stick. Whether you want one depends on the smart TV you have, which apps it has (presumably it has Netflix and the other main ones) and how easy it is to navigate the interface and use the remote.

We bought our Roku stick to replace our very old Apple TV, and one of the reasons for buying it is that we can stream content from our iPhones/iPad to the TV... if you have Android devices then I think a Chromecast does the same thing. It's not a function we use loads but it is handy sometimes.