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?

Also see www.moneysavingexpert.com/broadband-and-tv/haggle-with-sky-existing-customer-tips/

I have a Humax box that I use with a Satelite dish. I can record on it too. I got it to replace Sky about 5+ years ago. I think I paid about £380 for it?? No subscription so based on what I was paying Sky it paid for itself within about 7 months. The box itself is only small and has survived 2 house moves!! Bargain!

Glad of these suggestions.
I am going to ring up Sky maybe even next week. But first, I need to decide what to do!

I have gone through which channels i watch regularly or sometime. Now I need to work out what is available elsewhere.

The problem is if you want the sports you’re very limited as there’s only Sky and Virgin (who are so shit I wouldn’t have it if it was free). Now TV works out ridiculously expensive and there’s no point if it’s not HD. My contact is up in October (I think, the app isn’t working) so I’ll try and get a better deal for Black Friday.

We have Sky, I looked at the alternatives like Now TV but it didn't seem as convenient and the TV upstairs is older so hasn't got so many apps on it so we would have to use the Roku stick on that, we pay £51 a month for Sky, multiroom and cinema, only the same as going out once a month for a cheapish meal for 2.

Offer to DH to cancel for a few months to see how you get on without.... within a few months they will email you an offer to return, which will be pretty good!
Or as you cancel they give you a better offer anyway

DH always haggles with them for deals. He never says he wants to cancel but just asks nicely what they can offer. If the person on the phone isn't able to help he'll phone back straight away and try someone else. It's never failed and only once were there no deals at that time but he was told about a deal starting a couple of weeks later so he called back then.

We're currently £100 a month but for that we have the full TV package, UHD & HD, Sky cinema, sports (and sports HD), multiscreen, Disney+, Netflix, superfast broadband and phone. We did have BT Sport too but our offer on that ended and they didn't have another offer so we've removed that for now until we get another offer on it.

We use it regularly and there's stuff I watch we couldn't get on Virgin (I watch a lot of things on Sky Atlantic) so it's worth it to us. We can easily spend £100 on a night out and used to do that weekly. We'd now rather get a takeaway and stay in with a few drinks at home instead. We don't like relying on streaming alone because you're left with nothing to watch if the broadband goes down for any reason which has happened a couple of times recently with cables being upgraded in our area so we'll never go for the Sky Glass thing anyway.

I'd be quite happy to leave Sky but how do you get good broadband? Last time I looked, I couldn't find a way to do it but possibly options have changed? My sky would turn into a freeview box but how can you get broadband on its own?

@nostylenoclue

I'd be quite happy to leave Sky but how do you get good broadband? Last time I looked, I couldn't find a way to do it but possibly options have changed? My sky would turn into a freeview box but how can you get broadband on its own?

You can get broadband from anywhere on it's own, we have BT broadband and Sky TV, Sky do stand alone broadband.

@QueenLagertha

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

You can get it as an add on to Amazon prime if you have that. I have a smart TVs so don’t need an external stick.

Some older TVs don't have all the apps, our one upstairs (2015 Samsung) doesn't have Now, Apple or BritBox

@nostylenoclue

I'd be quite happy to leave Sky but how do you get good broadband? Last time I looked, I couldn't find a way to do it but possibly options have changed? My sky would turn into a freeview box but how can you get broadband on its own?

If you can get it, there's Vodafone super fast broadband for £16.50/month. We couldn't get it so we ended up sticking with Virgin, and they seem to offer better deals if you get a bundle with TV as well. DH has to haggle hard every year though!

www.moneysavingexpert.com/broadband-and-tv/cheap-broadband/#76fibreoptic

We have had the same conversation today. I am a reader so don’t watch tv apart from when landscape or portrait artist of the year are on.
My teenager doesn’t even go in the room the tv is on. It’s only my husband that uses it. And like u ours is due to go up and it is stupid amounts for what only really gets used at the weekend.

My answer when my husband asked if I wanted to keep it was obviously no as I don’t use it. But he could if he wanted to. But. Then we are paying for sky , Netflix , Amazon prime and Disney. No one needs that much content to watch.

I have an Amazon fire stick that cost me £30 and I get bbc itv c4 c5 and most other channels. There's nothing I've missed from sky yet and it's been 2 years now

Just a word of warning on a fire stick over a Roku, you can’t get now tv on a fire stick.

If you want football, it's hard to get a deal.

@ThatsALotOfPassionfruit

Just a word of warning on a fire stick over a Roku, you can’t get now tv on a fire stick.

We get Now TV on our fire stick?

@Oblomov22

If you want football, it's hard to get a deal.

This is our problem. I want the football, cricket and F1 and the sports packages are hardly ever included in the best deals.

@onemouseplace oh I never could on mine, although that was a couple of years ago tbf. Glad to hear they’ve caught up!

We have virgin broadband, tv and landline. We have add ons to TV package, sky sports (all of them) and one specific football chanel. £144+ a month. And we never use the landline to make calls.

Daughter is looking at options, including sky, and/or haggling virgin down. While we can afford it, and will not give up our added channels, £144 seems too much.

We ditched Sky after 10 years just before Christmas and I can honestly say we barely noticed! We have Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ (as well as the unexpected bonus of discovering our Sky box still works for Free view) and that gives us plenty of options. Don't forget that cancelling the service isn't permanent - why not try it and you can always sign up again if you find you really miss it?

Now tv.

Dodgy fire stick? That's what we'll be doing when our contract is up in July, for now we've dropped right down to the lowest we can and use family's sky go for sports. I watch everything on my iPad disney/Netflix/prime etc so it doesn't bother me but DH is sports mad so has been harder for him.

We pay £15 a month to Three for broadband. Plus £6 a month for Amazon Prime through my husband's phone contract. Plus £78 a year for Disney Plus. Between that and the normal channels and YouTube, there is far too much tv for us. Less than £30 a month.