No I do not think so, many just like to knock Sky! bur Freeview seems to shut up shop at midnight apart from a handful of channels, plus shopping, poker and tits n bums !

I have to take my hat off to you. Here we have a company with their hand in your wallet robbing you blind and you simply smile and invite to help themselves - wow, priceless.

You've just described $ky, The digital Sun. HaHa!

Nah its direct debit but thanks for your concern.

i get far far more entertainment off of sky and the channels on sky, then bbc and freeview.

If people want to spend £900 a year on TV, then that is up to them. I certainly would not, I pay at the moment £360 per year for my broadband, £30 a month and to be honest until I just worked it out I never realised it cost that much per year. I also pay around £75 a year for Netflix, but that is all I watch and the odd DVD, so no Licence fee.

Changing my ISP this month will save me a bit of money, but not a awful lot as I will have to pay line rental, something which I do not pay at the moment.

Anyway, the main thing that niggles me is when people say to me they are struggling to afford their gas, electric, food bills, so I ask them if they have Sky and they say yes, so I tell them that is the answer, get rid of sky.
If they do not want to get rid of Sky then they have to cope, simple as that.


£145 per year for broadband is pretty good, I presume that is ADSL and do not include line rental.

Don't do the $ky thing, that lowers the discussion, they are a business that was set up to make money. if people want to pay so much for mostly rubbish then that is up to them.

It is not good comparing BT or Talk Talk in the price wars of TV, because you need their broadband to get the service, something which you do not need with Sky.
Not everyone with Sky have broadband, I know a few people who don't.

It's the bbc that's rubbish to me and most of the programs are as dull as dishwater.
All i watch on bbc at the moment is waterloo road and uncle and a zombie apocalypse

Weak response, I guess you are seething underneath it all. You knew of course, you've known for a long time but it makes it worse when it's highlighted. I do feel your pain, sorry old chap.

Well that statement alone is illuminating and speaks volumes.

It's 'ditchwater' btw.

You watch more than me then. I had sky for 12 months about 10 years ago, maybe longer and I found it full of repeats, the same thing day in, day out. when I canceled they wanted to give me a Sky+ box, I asked them what is the point in having a box to record repeats. they soon accepted my cancel request without any more hassle.

Would I get sky again? Not as i live at the moment, if I ever got into a relationship and they moved in or I moved in with them and they wanted Sky then fine, if that is what they want, but they can bloody well pay for it

I do have a Now box, which I did use for 3 months when i came out of Hospital, or should I say I paid for, but never really used that much. I think I lost out on that.

Don't forget there are rules on these forums by Digital Spy on baiting other members on here.
Ian.

Yes, you don't have to have Sky broadband or line rental to get Sky TV, whereas you must take BT LR and BB to access BT TV.

However, unlimited BT Infinity (including weekend calls) at £27.65 plus the £10.45 TV package I'm on still is still considerably less than most Sky TV packages that provide television only. I don't include line rental in that as I've paid for a years in advance, something I believe Sky no longer offer.

And mine is the highest broadband tariff aswell, there are cheaper options for Infinity with usage limits (which don't count towards your TV usage) and standard broadband of course. It's simple mathematics, Sky are excessively expensive. Whoever your home phone/BB provider is, total your costs along with how much you pay to Sky(excluding temporary offers) and chances are you are paying considerably more than I am.

And before anyone says it, yes, I know, I KNOW, that if its your choice to have Sky and pay what I personally think is a heck of a lot for limited options then it is your own business. But it still stands as a sign that Sky stand to lose more customers as more people realise there are far cheaper options out there with little or no compromise on quality, choice and customer service. That's what the discussion was originally about: the demise of high-end pay TV. It's coming. It's inevitable.

I can well remember around 12 months ago on this very forum I argued that 3D was dead in the water (home TV I was discussing). I was howled down at the time by Sky HD 3D customers who argued it was the best thing since sliced bread and was going from strength to strength.

I was told to wait twelve months and I would be proved wrong. Someone remind me - how's that working out?

No, Virgin haven't spent billions on football rights, but the do have a very similar package structure to Sky which you said would be their downfall and you could see them closing shop in a few years, just wondered if your eairler assertion included them too.


.....and Sky Sports - and yet you say Sky is restrictive/expensive.

Pease correct me if I'm wrong, for a BT customer to gain access to Sky Sports (2 channels), would cost them near on £70 a month, so you don't regard that as restrictive/expensive?

So with Sky out the way, who would get the majority of football rights, BT? So you would be happy with that, you'd even turn a blind eye to the footballers getting fatter wage packets?

That is what I said.


It depend son what you get for your money at the end of the day and also do not forget that BT Tv, just like Talk Talk is relying on a a broadband service that is still a bit ropy in this country.
Bt have cut down the advance line rental a lot, but then so have all the others. I was going to pay all at once when I changed to plusnet, but decided against it, I may still change my mind once I get back to work, if i can.


BT is more expensive than any other large provider on their broadband service, but that is normal for BT, always been expensive and that will never change. Sky also offers offer you more for your money in the amount of channels you get for the money, if you want them or not is another matter, the fact is they have it.

BT You View offers a lot fewer channels.
The problem I also see on BT web site is that it is difficult to make comparisons. I just been on to Sky Website and i can see at a glance that The Variety Bundle would cost me £28 a month after 6 months, and £17.25 before that. I go to BT web site and they tell me that Infinity one with Tv and weekend calls would cost me £12.50 a month plus £16.99 month line rental + £49 activation fee
Ok, that is fine, but for how long and how much will the price rise to after the offer?

BT is awful for that.

I am not on sky or BT side here, I think both are over priced to be honest.


I think both companies are going to lose customers, they both paid over the top for that silly game called football and they will need to claw the money back somehow. The problem is it is the people who have no interest in football or sport that will pay. BT will hike it line rental up and sky will hike it entertainment channel prices up as well.

TBH, I hope it hits then both, but people just seems to keep on paying and paying huge amounts of money for mainly trash and a lot of stuff they do not watch.

Sure I am paying for stuff I do not watch on Netflix, but it is only £6 a month and it is there when I want to watch it. Still got to rely on our broadband mind you, even when I change providers.


But as you said, it is up to people, if they want to spend that amount of money.

You comparing pay TV with 3D? A different thing to be honest. Pay Tv will not vanish, it will change with more people hopefully wanting to watch what they want when they want and because someone sit in a office and say we will put Jamie Oliver can't cook on at 7.30pm on Monday and after that we will stick some other crap on because people will keep watching it as they can not be bothered to change channels.

It will come a time when we can switch on our Tv, pick up the remote and watch what we want at any time and with a standard UI, not a miss match we have now.

I can dream.

If the whole country was fibre to the home there could be a phone out, an internet out and a TV out from the fibre node.
The TV out would be a different payment plan to internet but still allow on demand that way. Tv could then be truly IPTV multicast and the only linear things would be news and live events like sports. All regular programs could be placed on a server and 'go live at a certain point!
Tv licencing would love it as you could only have TV services that way if you paid your licence and the licence would be tied to your node!
The service could allow you to have just basic 'freeview/freesat' like services that only requires your TV licence, but also allows you to buy ether Sky, BT, Virgin or any other pay tv package all down the one line!

If you buy more than one you can split the signal to any box that the pay TV service gives you and a normal TV for the basic stuff, even daisy chain through the pay tv box, meaning all pay TV boxes would have to offer a pass through so would any TVs!

This would do away with dishes and aerials, expect perhaps using dishes as a way to get the multicast services if you didn't have fibre to your home for any reason, say if it was a mobile home? You could even get broadband and landline services though that method instead of having the satellites instead of using the satellite for direct to home tv broadcasts only.
That would also plug the lack of fibre to the home whist it was rolled out!
The government could initiate this kind of efficiency if they got off their behind and actually did some more meaningful stuff! (as if)

I was simply reminding those that scoffed when I said 3D was dead in the water for TV home entertainment. I was proved right and I suspect I may well be right about the present Sky subscription model being broken.

However, at the end of the day do I care? I saw the light and moved to FTA TV and it's the best thing I have done in a long time plus I have saved a shed load of cash.

I think if you look at the regulators rules governing prices BT are forced to charge a tad more than the opposition.

They could seriously undercut the opposition but then the other players would immediately cry 'foul' and accuse BT of abusing their position as the dominant provider.

There has been plenty such skirmishes in the past. It is therefore a somewhat artificial structure.

Do you have a link to this information?

As far as I was aware, BT Openreach run the network, and sell to the providers at a set price (including BT retail), and they have to charge the same price to all, so as not to be unfair to the competition, how the retail arm then sells onwards is up to them, that's how I understood it.

Yes I think Virgin would also be in peril if they also didn't rethink their business model.

I'm not sure where you're getting this £70 a month figure from, if I wanted Sky Sports 1 and 2 right now (which I don't) my monthly sub would come out to around £59-£60.

I think both Sky and BT, but particularly the former, overestimate the importance of football rights. I think there should be what is becoming g increasingly prevalent in the States: an OTT Premier League pass type service on streaming platforms where fans can have greater control of what they watch and are not tied down to their cable or satellite providers contracts just for one sport.


Agree with you about football. And yes, there is less choice on BT TV than Sky. However,I've been a Sky customer and the vast majority of channels Id never bother with. With BT I find it's more about quality than quantity.

The page I looked at quoted £44.45 (inclu Sky Sports (only 2 channels) @ £22) plus £16.99 line rental and BT Infinity, I took the lowest entry to fibre price which was £7.50 under BT's sale.

Your monthly sub would be the £74.25 inclusive of line rental which you have take out so needs to be added, I know you pay in advance but it's still a contributing factor.

Gosh there's been loads of material about this over the years. BT are not allowed to use their position to undercut the market. I was reading something about this only a couple of months back, through I think an Ofcon link.

It's not about Openreach prices more about what BT can sell it to consumers for. Look at the Market 1 exchanges, that's another strange one. Plusnet will charge you much less at an exchange where there is competition than one where there is no competition i.e. M1. Now why does the regulator allow companies to do this?

In effect the ISP are saying we know you are a captive audience and so we don't need to be competitive.