Do you get your telly from Sky? Things are set to change from the 1st of September.
Sky Price Freeze
First off, generous as ever, Sky is freezing its TV prices for existing subscribers for a year. No price rises until September 2012.
Given that prices have steadily crept up, customers wanting TV, Sport, Movies and HD are now paying over £62 a month, this prize-freeze is presumably an attempt to stop the churn – customers shopping around for one of the cheaper services, such as BT Vision or for sports, Top Up TV.
Package Changes
From the 1st of September, Sky’s packages simplify too, and customers should check the letter that came with the recent Sky Magazine, or take a look on Sky site for information on the upcoming package changes. Essentially the old Variety, Knowledge, Lifestyle, Music, Children’s and News & Events will be replaced with just two packs – “Entertainment” at £19.50 and “Entertainment Extra” at £24.50 a month.
Sky’s 6 TV packages were a little confusing, and this consolidation seems to be a sensible thing to do. Existing customers won’t be disadvantaged, but new customers from September won’t have the option to go for a slightly cheaper mix of 3 of the 6 old packages.
The “Entertainment” pack is essentially the “Variety” plus the “Style and Culture – so old Variety-only customers get a few new channels.
Prices for Movies and Sports will also stay frozen for a year for existing customers.
If you’ve not signed up to Sky, you have until the 31st of August to sign up and get your price frozen.
More on the changes: See the Sky Pack Changes page
I downgraded from 6 channel packages to 4 and tried to save money based on not viewing some of the channels such as music and sport. Now they are to be restored and I am forced to pay the higher price anyway. In any case, the present price would have increased due to inflation, so they almost cancel each other out and I get 6 channel packages instead of 4.
Beyond this situation, the price is frozen? No, for me it’s increased regardless of my getting the unwanted channels. However, I recently applied for the 3 months free offer for Sky Multiroom while at the same time cancelling the HD package since a lot of the programmes would be upscaled to my HD TV anyway.
Prior to the Sky Multiroom offer, I already haggled for a 6 months discount deal on Sky Movies, so I’m still at the £30 budget mark which will increase slightly due to the September channel changes.
I can choose to cancel the Sky Movies soon and get back to about the £25 monthly charge plus the Sky Multiroom charge, yet I’ve got the second Sky + box acting as a hard drive recorder for me as well. Thus getting more from Sky in the meantime.
New customers can check websites like quidco and topcashback for special discounts before being directed to Sky’s new customer webpages. Existing customers can haggle for discounts over the phone as recommended by MoneySavingExpert.com and its forums for Sky and the Internet etc.
http://tinyurl.com/rthome links to the Radio and Telly forum for extra advice.
http://www.sky.com/mysky/enjoymore/entertainment
This helps show the TV channel logos.
Updated info in RT Forum Sky Section’s topic:
https://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1315033236/0#0