Now TV and free view channels

[Wanttoleavesky]

This is maybe a daft question but can you get the BBC channels (1, 2 and Ceebeebies mainly) if you have Now TV?

I want to leave Sky and noticed that Now TV’s entertainment package has the channels we want for the shows we like (FOX, Atlantic) but can I also watch normal telly?

My husband isn’t too impressed about losing Sports but we’ve got BT Sports however the kids really wouldn’t forgive me if there was no more Hey Duggee or Octonauts!!

Also, what’s the catch with Now TV? Sky are telling us it’s £25 for entertainment and Now TV is only £7.99 for what we consider the “good” Sky channels and £10 for a rolling cinema pass whereas Sky is £18 (£10 if you lock-in for 18 months).

You can't watch BBC with a now TV box. However the content is really good.

Yes you can watch free view but I can’t remeber If I did that via freeview or through the now tv box.

I’ve gone to sky because I wanted more movies and stuff and also they had a broadband deal Oh and I love being able to record stuff so if you’d miss that maybe consider that too.

Can you not record or watch catch-up tv? That would be a pain as we record everything due to the kids.

I wonder if I could unplug the Now TV stick and plug in a free view box when we want to watch BBC as I’ve already got one of those.

You can watch BBC through a now TV box. We do. We love it and it's soooo much cheaper than sky ( even though it's actually owned by sky!)
You can't record but we've not missed that as you can get everything on catch up.

Thanks! Yes, our Sky bill is atrocious and they’re not budging. That is annoying you can’t record but if you can get things on catch-up that’ll be fine as it’s not as if we jet off on lots of holidays and our Sky box is full of series we’ve not got round to watching yet!

My husband is miffed about sports and when I asked what we watch he’s saying Golf and Tennis but Amazon had the US Open and BBC has Wimbledon and for the big Golf tournaments we could buy a weeks pass. Only thing is he likes boxing but all the really big fights are PPV. I’m thinking of ditching BT Sport next year once they stop showing UFC so we could pay the inflated NowTV monthly sports price and still save overall.

I might cancel Sky and get the NowTV free trail and see if Sky come back in that 14 day period with a better offer. I can download episodes of Hey Duggee and Octonauts on the iPad to appease the kids!

Now TV has a sports package.

Sorry realised you know that!

We have now TV, Netflix and Amazon and it's still works out much, much cheaper than sky..... although we had no choice as we can't get sky where we live.
Last year now TV had a black Friday sale and we got everything half price....we just had to pay upfront for 12 months.

If you keep your Sky box after leaving Sky you can watch Freesat (as opposed to Freeview which is received through an aerial rather than satellite dish) which has bbc channels. When we left Sky, it was possible to pay monthly to keep the recording function of the Sky box, iirc it was £10 a few years ago. We ended up buying a Humax box for being able to record.

A Now TV box will allow you to watch BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4 and My5. BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub now have live streaming though occasionally rights issues may mean they can't stream a particular film or sporting event.

However, NowTV boxes are a bit locked down (though not as tightly as they used to be) since NowTV is a branch of Sky. For example, they do have Netflix but (as far as I can see) don't have Amazon. I'd recommend thinking about getting either a Roku Streaming Stick or Google Chromecast (or a new Smart TV) which will include NowTV as a service but also give you access to a wider range of channels and services.

Thank you everyone. Great tips. We’ve got a games console we can get Amazon TV through and I was thinking of adding Netflix through that if I could.

One thing though is that if we cancel Sky does our Sky box automatically delete all of our recorded shows? We might have a lot of TV to watch before we do that!

NowTV doesn’t have the ability to record, it’s on demand TV (like Netflix). I think you also have access to on Demand BBC via an iPlayer app. If you want to record free view channels then you would need to buy something like a youview box.

We got rid of Sky ages ago and switched to NiwTV and a youview box.

As soon as your sky is cut off then thecprograms on your sky box will become unwatchable. You have to give 30 days notice so a bit of time to watch all your stored stuff!

Bit of an anti-climax as we stayed with Sky however we halved our bill. My husband really wanted to keep sports and the record function and whilst we would have saved more it’s important to him and he does watch it a lot it was fair enough.

We’re new to On Demand as we’ve never had good enough broadband to stream anything until recently but with our saving we’ll take out Netflix too and see how we get on. We also ditched multi-room so might get NowTV for upstairs to see how it goes.

I did try and use the NowTV prices as a bargaining point but the Sky guy was pretty clued up on all the details which was fine and still pretty happy with our saving overall.