AIBU to cancel our entire Sky package? The price is a joke.

[HEAVNER]

Just sat down to look at our monthly budget and our TV/broadband bill is making me feel sick (over €110/£100 a month!).
My husband insists he needs his sports channels, and the kids want their movies, but I'm putting my foot down. I was chatting to a mum at the school gates and she said they completely ditched Sky and use a "private server" on their Firestick for a fraction of the price, and it has literally everything.
AIBU to just cancel Sky and force my husband to figure out this private streaming thing? Has anyone else here done this? Is it reliable?

Sky prices are crazy.

I barely watch anything, mostly YouTube and only have the basic Netflix subscription.

You need to ring sky regularly to get better prices i currently have sky internet, landlines, sky stream, Netflix, Disney plus, hbo max and paramount plus for £35 a month

Cancel it and get a VPN. Use said VPN to Eastern Europe and get cheaper package (Go3, Canal+ Poland etc.). More legit than a dodgy fire stick.

If DH dropped dead, one of the first things I'd do is cancel Sky. I could manage quite happily without it, but he "needs it" for sports.

Go on a price comparison site to find out the best offers for new customers in your area and then either switch or phone or webchat Sky to haggle the price down. MoneySavingExpert, uSwitch or similar.

Don't cancel your broadband but do consider alternatives to Sky sport and films.

I’ve recently left Sky for the same reason. We were paying £160/m!!! We’ve moved to EE for broadband and TV plus 2 extra TV boxes for £55. This includes loads of channels and Netflix. Plus the BB is so much better.

This is probably a daft question!

but does NOW TV have a recording box?

I currently have Virgin TiVo & I watch practically everything recorded. But the monthly payment is getting ridiculous

I also need to add HBO as Tour de France is no longer going to be Free to Air ...

We have a firestick and IPTV package. £80 a year. We can watch any sport/film/series/live TV channel in UK/USA
No VPN required but we do have one £140 for 2 years

Just negotiate a better price.

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/25823306.amazon-fire-tv-sticks-blocking-illegal-apps-new-change/

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) issued a warning to UK consumers last year regarding the use of modified streaming devices.

The organisation’s statement follows a significant court case involving Jonathan Edge, from Liverpool, who was sentenced to three years and four months’ imprisonment.
Edge was convicted of both operating and personally using an illegal streaming service.
FACT chairman Kieron Sharp said: “This campaign makes it clear that end users of illegal streaming services are breaking the law.

That's crazy. I know a few people who pay £100+ a month for Sky, and I'm like whaaa?!

Neither me or DH are interested in watching sport, and we have multiple 100s of films on DVD (about 1000 probably) and we have other ways of watching newer films, and TV shows, so we don't even have Sky. Not had it since around 2012.

We have a Freesat box so we can get loads of channels, (via the satellite dish,) and we record shows so we can skip the tedious, frequent, lengthy ad breaks. It cost £225. Had it for 14 years. (Well, one box broke after 8 years, and we replaced it in 2020 and have had the second one since then.... The second one cost £250. So we have spend £475 in 14 years! That's £33 a YEAR/£2.82 a month.)

We just cancelled it last month. Not worth it at all.

that's interesting. they phone me about once a year to offer me deals. Often its sports channels, which I would pay not to watch, but 2 years ago I got an upgrade to Q and a sky booster box for my kitchen TV for nothing. They just phoned me out of the blue and offered it if I would continue my subscription for the coming year. I wasn't going to cancel anyway so it was a no brainer.

Or you can pay less than £10 a month to get NowTV movies and entertainment as they are almost always discounted - which is exactly the same as sky. You get access to all of the stuff on sky. The now tv sport has discounts too but is still cheaper than paying sky directly.

You don’t need an illegal cracked fire stick or to negotiate a still expensive contract with sky.

I think it is like Sky Stream where there is no recording mechanism, but everything is available to stream after it has aired. So the downside is that you have to watch the adverts (although on Sky Stream you can pay £6 a month for ad skip).

They are well on to this. I did the "im leaving" dance very year, but this year I got Kevin Bridges' twin brother, and he basically said "how much do you want to spend? I can do you broadband, phone, TV, netflix and films for your old price." I argued that I didnt need films or netflix and it was going to be more expensive(he quoted me the actual price) to strip it back. And now we have disney and hbo too. We did have a dodgy stick(which like a pp drove me nuts as it was always sticking or the films were of questionable quality.(we watched Conclave and realised later there was no incidental music) But the servers are getting closed as quick as they connect.

You can't record Now TV but you just stream the content so why do you need to record it?

We just rotate through the streaming platforms and never pay full price except Netflix who don't do discounts as far as I know.

Not sure what extra value you get from Sky at many times the cost?

Make sure your broadband is always on a deal too, something else you should never pay 'full price' for.

Dodgy fire stick £50 for the year. You won’t regret it.

But.. do you not actually want to support the platforms producing the shows you watch, so that all the many many artists and professionals involved get paid? What other things do you think it’s ok to steal, because you are stealing.

I’m an artist. I absolutely hate that people think it’s ok to steal from creative industries.

And the VPN on top. Unless you load it yourself.

I don't blame people for getting a dodgy stick tbh. People are sick of all the subscriptions to stuff.. especially when they then add adverts to make you pay more

I’m amazed people are still paying high prices for Sky TV. I pay £4.99 a month for Now, which includes Sky Sports and all HBO / HBO Max content - the best TV shows that’s ever been made. I would and have never illegally watch TV - it’s theft.

How do you get all that for £4.99 a month? I pay about £9 a month for the movies and entertainment packages which is already half price but doesn't include Sports.

They keep pushing Sports, which looks like loads more money but we're not interested anyway.

But in any case, Now TV is loads cheaper than Sky so I agree that its mad that anyone pays for it, especially as you have to sign up for a contract whereas you can pay for Now month to month.

I suppose not everyone has decent broadband but that doesn't seem to apply to the OP and you just need to get a deal on that too, because that's another service where you need to keep switching to avoid being ripped off.

@Bjorkdidit That was the deal they offered me when it came to resubscribing.

We have Amazon prime and that’s it. We survive just fine.

Focus on finding ah alternative sports package as I’m sure that’s the thing your husband cares about the most.

I thought they were cracking down on dodgy Firesticks. I would tread carefully with that stuff.

But it’s theft!