AIBU to want to keep Sky TV?

[Uhtredswoman]

First world problems and all that, but...

We are trying to save money and DH suggested cancelling Sky.

I don't want to because:

• We always stack up programmes to watch as 'box sets' as a couple.
• I am an early riser so often record in the evening to watch before everyone else is up.
• We just have a basic package so would be saving only a (relatively) small amount.
• We are lucky enough that we don't need to save the money, we just want to divert more into holidays/work on the house etc.

AIBU to keep it?

We were in that situation, did cancel and haven't missed it a bit. We got a Humax box which does everything the Sky box does in terms of recording etc, for all the free channels. We worked out we were hardly watching any paid channels anyway, so why bother?

I’d ditch it. Plenty of other cheaper ways to watch shows.

We refuse to give up Sky and use it like you do. We're not huge socialisers so we save money in that respect, we love being sat on the sofa, watching whatever we've recorded the previous evening because were always in bed by 10.

Keep the Sky package.

If you get a lot of use out of it, then I'd keep it. We were paying £150 for Sky until recently with sports, movies, multi rooms etc so we have cut down because we were not using it enough to justify that cost. We've still kept it though, just reduced certain things as I like Sky. We have Netflix and Amazon which I probably watch more of...we like TV and films in our house.

I had to cancel Sky when I was on Maternity leave and DH was made redundant. They were extremely sympathetic and gave me 6 months free (the whole shebang too, movies and sports that we didn’t have before) and I started paying for it again when I went back to work. Ring and speak to them and see if they can do you a deal

Hmm, the Humax sounds good...

Most of what we watch is Sky Atlantic, which we could get through NowTv etc, but can you record this way?

We have prime and netflix, and dumped sky.

We have a smart tv, so get bbc iplayer etc.

The only thing we miss is channel surfing, so scrolling until you find something, bit that's it really

I was like you & didnt want to get rid as tbh i used it a lot. Anyway, got annoyed with the price hikes and did some research.

We switched to a NowTV box, which is still run by sky so we get all the sky channels and box sets plus a few others like MTV. Its only £8 a month and you can add passes for movies or sport whenever you want. We have the kids channels which are £4 a month. We get movies when they're on offer so currently paying £6 a month for 3 months.

It has all the apps for things like iplayer, ch4 etc and Netflix (we split the cost of this with sil so pay £45 a year).

I miss certain shows, mainly TLC ones but its no biggie really and i prefer the lower bill.

How much are you paying monthly OP? Is there an opportunity to scale back?

@Uhtredswoman you dont need to record, once a show airs on sky NowTv has it ready to watch and no adverts! So for example if a show airs at 8pm, by 9pm its watchable..

I was paying stupid money for the sky and broadband an couple of years back

At least 130 a month, didn't have a sports subscription either

So I cancelled the lot

I now pay £18 a month for my broadband with talk talk

Got movies, boxset and kids now tv pass for 20 a month then Netflix and prime at 18 for the pair ....so paying £56 a month,
The only contract I have is with talk talk
Any of the others I can cancel when I please

I pay £3.20 a month through Now tv for the entertainment pack which includes SKY Atlantic, box sets etc.

Now TV is brilliant. You can't record but you don't need to. It's all there on demand.
We've had it for 2 years and we've not missed sky once.

I looked at getting rid of sky but not being technically minded found it all a headache!!
My children don't watch TV as they're on their gaming machines do it's only me.

So what l did eventually...

Downstairs is a smart TV and l currently have one month free of Netflix.

My bedroom is where l watch TV of an evening. So l cut down my package from multiroom, HD etc and got the box installed in my room for £15/mth.

What l realised was that l really use the recording feature of sky and it was that that held me to them.

I'm sure others will pile on me and say about recording hard drives etc but as l said I'm not technically minded and l was happy with £15/mth

No way I’d give up Sky. We have Sky Q and it’s amazing

@Arrowfanatic - so the Sky shows I now record would be on-demand on NowTV?!

@skippy67 - £3.20?! That's fantastic!

That's what we need I think! You guys may have convinced me!

We call up to "cancel" sky every year and they give us all sorts of discounts - not paid full price for sky for years.

When you call up to cancel they will offer you a discount to stay !

YABU.

I’m a Sky Sports subscriber, and I really enjoy having it (I spent all day yesterday watching the Ashes), but if we needed to save money it would be the very first thing to go. Pay TV is the definition of a non-essential luxury purchase.

You just use streaming for NowTV, no need to record.

You do need decent broadband though.

There's also loads of ways to pay less than£8 a month for NowT.

You can get the cards discounted all over the place (supermarkets, Currys, Argos etc).

If you go into your online account and try to cancel, they offer you a discount.

I won 3 months subscription with McDonalds monopoly.

We've had it for years and have always paid half price or less.

Depending on the box sets you watch, you can probably find them elsewhere for free. We haven't had a tv licence for 15 years. We used to pay the extortionate amounts for sky and found that after work we just scrolled through with nothing in particular to watch.

We now have amazon and Netflix, 4OD and others available on the Xbox. We save loads based on this and never have nothing to watch.

Depends what you watch , I won’t cancel ours because I watch loads of sport ( cricket) and it’s the best place to do that . If I didn’t need the sports package I’d probably get by with freeview quite happily .

DH went through a phase a few years ago where he'd decided to get one of those boxes and stream everything. He cancelled sky, installed his fancy box and a series of rows ensued.

His box would have been fine had our internet connection been half decent, but it wasn't. Half way through a movie or show it would buffer, or stop altogether. This was ok though because he could 'find another source!' By the time this happened you'd missed half an hour of whatever you were watching.

I was so fucking irritated with it and it caused no end of rows. His defence was it was saving money. Mine was we don't go out, we don't drink, smoke or gamble. I watch TV at night, thats me, and you've taken that now as well.
After one last epic row I called Sky and reinstated it. Fancy box went in the loft. Peace reigns in our house again.

Yabu. No-one needs sky. Just read a book!