alternatives to Sky

[mckenzie]

as part of my new year resolution to try and cut our monthly outgoings I'm looking at alternatives to sky or at least trying to get our monthly costs down.

We only need the sports channnels, CBeebies and CBBC, the history and documentary channels and I guess Gold so that Dh can watch all the old Only Fools and Horses again and again and again and again.
We do have two controls though (ie, DH can watch something on one TV while I watch something else on the other TV).
We currently pay £50.50 a month.

I'm putting off calling Sky themselves until i've done some reseacrh as it;'s a premium line call now isn't it and I know I'll be holding forever whcih in itself will them cost me lots of money .

Any tips anyone please?

TIA

bt vision box. £90 outlay, then no subscription fees.you can order films, sport etc on a pay as you go basis.

www.bt.com

You could be really brave and try NTL - do you have cable in your area?

If you go to ntlworld.com you should be able to see a comparison somewhere of prices.

Have you thought of calling Sky and telling them you're leaving? they may just drop the price for you - I do it all the time with ntl - we're currently paying half price for our packages -

and freeview has quite a seection of channels

thanks for the quick replies
it seems though that neither freeview nor bt vision offer the sports channels (very important in our house).

why do I have to be brave to call NTL lucycat??

If you want Sky sports you may be stuck for a choice - have you looked at the various sky packages online .

We have Skyplus and an extra box in the kids playroom, but we are getting freeview in our kitchen

( we currently have NTL cable in the kitchen)

freeview with top-up tv? think its £11 ish a month.you have to get a freeview box and an extra card.its a month by month service too.think that may have sports, and has uktv gold.

NTL's customer support can be notoriously atrocious!!

they close in the evenings and at weekends iirc!

oh and if you use the interactive stuff on your Sky Sports then you can't get it with ntl - drives dh bonkers on a Saturday night that he can't watch the football match he wants too.

Having said that we have their Internet package and they are pretty good there, so i shouldn't tempt fate!!

Ntl's Family Pack is £19.50 a month,then to add Sky Sports on is another £26.50 a month, you can also add the PremPlus football at the start of the season, we paid £50 as we paid early for it.

but there are other packages where you can include Broadband and phone calls as well.

Agree with Lucycat's summation of NTL - they are spectacularly rubbish imo!!! And as for being closed evenings and weekends - what is that all about! That's ok I'll just tell everything only to stop working on a weekday between 9-5 shall I!!! Found their internet package to be not very robust either I'm afraid. Sky far better, can you not just look at the Sky website to adjust your packages?