Sky TV

[OhWifey]

I noticed that my Sky bill last month was almost £80. That's astronomical. It's for line rental, standard broadband and Sky Sports. I'm going to phone up for a better deal but feel very left behind by understanding what the alternatives are (Netflix, Amazon etc-I just don't understand them). Could someone explain to me in basic terms what the alternatives to Sky are, to give me fuel when negotiating my package. Many thanks.

We were also paying £80 or so pcm. DH rang them up and negotiated a reduction to about £55 pcm. I don't think this involved any reduction in the package we get from them. Just a, 'we're going to leave as we can get much cheaper deals elsewhere' type conversation.

I did similar with our contents and buildings insurance. I hate the fact that companies seem to charge long standing customers more - through annual increases - than they do new ones - who they entice with good deals.

My sky was about the same and I've paid around 50% for two years now, the incentivise better if you agree a longer contract

Virgin costs the same fyi

Enjoy trying to cancel sky. It's a nightmare.

We were paying £30 for sky broadband which isn't really expensive but my dh rang and got it down to £20 per month because we weren't happy with the speed.

We also have now tv which is owned by sky it's a rolling contract and u can pick and choose what u pay we pay 9.99 for movies and 2.99 for kids but u can add entertainment and sports and cancel at anytime.

In basic terms:
Now TV access to Sky programmes, movies and sports without an ongoing contract, streamed through the TV. Cost depends on what package you want.
Netflix A good selection of TV box sets and films, but you have to wait longer for films to come on and there seem to be fewer recent films compared to Sky. There's a good amount of exclusive content too (eg some really good TV shows like Orange is the New Black made for Netflix).
Amazon I haven't used this but it seems similar to Netflix with a different selection of TV shows and films, and you get free next day delivery on Amazon products IIRC.

Those are the most popular ones anyway. There may be other streaming services. You'd need to get broadband too of course to use them. You can get a lot of the basic channels for free using a FreeSat box (we have one made by Humax which can also record shows and works really well), but not Sky Atlantic etc. You google to find a list of FreeSat channels.

The Sky Sports package is very expensive and you might find your bills come down a lot if you cancel it. You can get the sports package with NowTV for £33.99 a month, but that may not be any cheaper than you are paying at the moment.

If there are only a few things you want to watch on Sky Sports you can get a 24 hour pass with Now TV for £7.99 (we have done this 2 or 3 times and it has worked well). Or Sky have previously offered my parents deals like £30/month (I think!) for films and sports if you agree to a long 2 year contract.

Wonderful, thanks so much all. Speedy that breakdown is so helpful. I will give them a call and make my way to the retentions team...

Happy to help I forgot to mention Virgin but Pratchet said above it probably won't be any cheaper. However, it might be worth checking if Virgin have any good deals for new customers and if so saying to Sky you are considering switching to Virgin because they are offering a cheaper deal - it might encourage Sky to make you a better offer.

£80 isn’t that bad actually, if it includes full sky sports? Do you have Sky Boxsets too?

As advised, Virgin really isn’t much cheaper.

If you’re out of contract they might offer you a discount to sign up for another 12 month contract.