The Official Sky HD Thread and FAQ

[mamboboy]

£18 is still less than the £27.50 they have to pay for at the moment.

As for swapping, you can instantly swap once in a month, but if do another swap in that month it'll take 31 days for that change to happen.

HD is still £6, but if you take an 18 month contract (to TV) you can get it for £2pm.

There's also a loyalty scheme coming as well based on tenure. Not sure on the exactly details yet, but the most loyal customers will supposedly get free replacement boxes, free Q Installs, etc.

[GregB]

Originally Posted by mamboboy

There's also a loyalty scheme coming as well based on tenure. Not sure on the exactly details yet, but the most loyal customers will supposedly get free replacement boxes, free Q Installs, etc.

About bloody time as well. It's a pain having to renegotiate every year just to get close to what a new customer can get.

[jockosjungle]

Good news if true, I left BT recently on the basis that they offered me £2 off a £50 bill, a new customer would get it for £30, plus a £125 gift card, plus brand new equipment. Guy was pretty nasty on the phone when I pointed it out.

Three days later they had the nerve to try and keep me as a customer.

But having to threaten to leave, etc. frankly leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the customer. Mate of mine was paying £27 a month for the basic SKY and didn't even have a SKY+ box.

[HenryKrinkle]

There's no way the 'loyalty scheme' will include new subscriber prices for existing customers...Sky are greedy ************ and this new Sports line up is quite frankly laughable! I wouldn't even mind paying the full £27.50 if we got to see every prem game, like they do in other countries, but their measly 126(?) games for the amount of money they've jizzed on it is garbage!!! I hate Sky!

...and I hate BT

[mamboboy]

Originally Posted by HenryKrinkle

There's no way the 'loyalty scheme' will include new subscriber prices for existing customers...Sky are greedy ************ and this new Sports line up is quite frankly laughable! I wouldn't even mind paying the full £27.50 if we got to see every prem game, like they do in other countries, but their measly 126(?) games for the amount of money they've jizzed on it is garbage!!! I hate Sky!

...and I hate BT

Look at the Sky website now... New customers have to pay full price for the bundles plus £199 setup for a 2TB Q box install (more than current customers who pay £60 for a 2TB +£40 for a mini if they phone!).

Cashback sites have also stopped doing cashback/special discounts for people who sign up via them for just TV. I may be wrong but I think the only way to get discounted Sky now is
through some affiliates, but the discount is minimal. I assume inbound sales probably have discounts but AFAIK 20% is the maximum.

They are trying to get away from the offer mentality. Sky pretty much created a situation where new (and old) customers simply refuse to pay more than their offer prices... some of them taking 60% off the package. The issue is they don't look at these discounts as rewards or bonuses, but more so a right to get the reductions. A huge amount of these people don't even need the packages they have.

I personally like the idea of the loyalty system - as long as it includes worthwhile discounts... free boxes/TV's/Q installs based on tenure and not daft things like a movie rental I think it'll be a success. BTW, 10 years+ is how you get included in the top bracket from what I know.

[nutter45]

Is sky q worth getting?

My sky box is playing up and I'm due my annual cancel and re deal phone call.

[Stevie G]

Having a look on the Sky website, the cheapest you can get Sky Sports is currently £49.50 a month with £20 set up cost - £22 a month for the Sky Q box and basic bundle plus £27.50 for Sports. With the new pricing the cheapest will be, what, £22 plus £18, so £40 a month? Or £44 for all football. Not sure if that includes those in HD or the basic Sky Go or if they are extra.

We were paying around £70 a month in Dubai for their TV, phone and broadband package, but that was because the basic package and broadband were expensive, I'm pretty sure Bein Sports was around £12 a month in that bundle, and Al Jazeera Sports before that was similar but, other that the season where the EPL got arsey and stopped all 3pm matches being shown because of piracy, we did get every EPL match (not always in English, mainly because of our rubbish ISP box), loads of FA Cup, league cup, all european footie plus most other sports (tennis, boxing, rugby, golf) as well.

With people getting used to paying less than a tenner a month for all of Netflix and Amazon Prime type services Sky really need to keep up. Presumably Now TV will be similarly priced to their normal TV bundles but with less content and only 720p. Hardly surprising people look for other ways to get it when it's all available for free at very high quality if you want it. Live sports are the only thing that's harder to get for free (reliably at high quality) and more people would pay if it was reasonably priced and high quality.

We still have an old Sky HD box (sub cancelled as it went from the introductory 12 month £30 a month to £80 a month) and often the PQ of the live football was very poor, slowing down and jerking like an IPTV stream at times. I want to get footie for the next season, but considering a foreign dish and sub if possible and not too expensive. Rather pay a bit more for all the matches than to Sky for their 126 plus BT for theirs.

[mamboboy]

Originally Posted by nutter45

Is sky q worth getting?

My sky box is playing up and I'm due my annual cancel and re deal phone call.

Yes, but do it before these sports changes happen. If you've got a big offer ending then retentions should have the same offer or the same one -10%. Some retentions offers auto renew for 12 months without a contract if you're the type to call back every year.

If they don't offer good enough just fully cancel (you can do this over live chat or phone), you'll get the winback team call a few days later... you can play hardball and keep checking your Sky account over the next few weeks as it should have an offer to make you change your mind. 60% off is the best I think.

Don't take Sky Q out in the cancellation call as the best they can offer is 10% off TV with it. Just get the better retention offer yourself then upgrade to Q afterwards... go through to the department to change your package and just talk about Q - you should get a good deal then.

Originally Posted by Stevie G

Having a look on the Sky website, the cheapest you can get Sky Sports is currently £49.50 a month with £20 set up cost - £22 a month for the Sky Q box and basic bundle plus £27.50 for Sports. With the new pricing the cheapest will be, what, £22 plus £18, so £40 a month? Or £44 for all football. Not sure if that includes those in HD or the basic Sky Go or if they are extra.

Nah that's Sports in SD.
You need to be on Box sets to get the HD. Sports HD Pack is then an additional £6, or £2 with an 18 month contract when the sports changes launch.
If you upgrade to Q though you can get UHD on any bundle without the HD pack but then you need to have the £12 QMS pack.

[nutter45]

Very helpful, thanks

[Stevie G]

So for a new subscriber, what's the cheapest I can get Sports and in HD? When I went on to do that test order it greyed out the £6 HD option for sports.

[Jez]

Bet the 'loyalty scheme’ wont be advertised or promoted, its probably just what they do now..

Ring up try to cancel.
They offer you something.

Doubt its anymore than that.

[nutter45]

I've got them to 40% off tv but not much off fibre. Think I'll cancel and see if they can go any further as it's not as good as they're offering new customers!

[HenryKrinkle]

Very, very difficult to negotiate a good unlimited fibre deal at the moment...best I've had is £7.80 off the usual £38.99 package. I've contacted them 4 times so far about this on both the phone and chat and in every one they've actively encouraged me to go to their rivals...bizarre business plan!

[nutter45]

Yes, they did that to me too!

I guess they've hit their numbers for the quarter

[HenryKrinkle]

Originally Posted by nutter45

Yes, they did that to me too!

I guess they've hit their numbers for the quarter

I wonder when the next quarter starts?

There's a BT offer that, all being well with the cashback, comes to a little over £16 per month. Is there any reason to stay with Sky seeing as their best offer is £31.19 (...how the hell they came to that discount is anyones guess)?!

[jockosjungle]

I think maybe they've realised that about 80% of people are on some sort of offer for threatening to quit.

They probably have also realised that 80% of those people had no intention of quitting because they spend 8 hours a day watching sports on the wazzocks lantern.

I'd guess they'd make more money from people who can't live without sports and tv paying full price, than by giving everyone a deal.

I think I was offered 25% off my package without even really asking.

[GregB]

I probably got a deal on sports because I rarely watch football

[douglasb]

The reason Netflix is a tenner or whatever is because they didn't pay a gazillion pounds to show the football. Sky Sports ain't gonna get cheaper any time soon - they have bills to pay.

[The Bear]

The amount of adverts nowadays on Sky's channels is getting worse and it's peeing me off. 5-6 mins each break and at least twice in a half-hour show.

Why do we pay loads of money only to get shedloads of adverts?

[malcy]

Originally Posted by The Bear

The amount of adverts nowadays on Sky's channels is getting worse and it's peeing me off. 5-6 mins each break and at least twice in a half-hour show.

Why do we pay loads of money only to get shedloads of adverts?

There aren't actually more adverts in a 24 hour period it's just how the TV companies use the allowable time is becoming smarter and they are also bending the rules to exploit grey areas.

So in total no more hours it's just if you are watching popular programming you are more likely to see a larger share of what's allowed.

However who watches pay TV channels these days live unless it's sport or reality. Just record and watch later so you skip the adverts.

The two adverts in a 30 minute time slot has been seen for a number of year and is common in US it's just being increasing used here. They do this rather than have adverts between programmes as they worry you will switch channel if there is a 5 minute gap after the programme you are watching ends and the next one starts. You can see this clearly on a show like NCIS where they use a black & white freeze frame to border advert breaks as a stylistic choice. The US gets breaks a few minutes after a show starts and before it ends. That's not legal in UK you need to run at least 5 to 10 minutes although they have tried to do this on C4 channels in the past.

Channels aggregate their advertising allowance when they believe most viewers are watching so ITV1 it's 7 to 10pm or ITV3 afternoons. This is why advertising breaks in the early hours of the morning are just promotions or a handful of adverts. They know the audience is minimal and most are recording so will skip the adverts.

The breaking of films in half with a 5 minute entertainment filler exploits the OFCOM rules. ITV started this and now most follow. It's because you are allowed fewer advert breaks in a film than other shows as it's though to break the narrative flow. So splitting not just creates advert opportunities either side of the middle filler show but you can have more adverts in aggregate in two separate films each an hour or so long, than if a single film of 2 hours !

Children's pay TV now tends to be scheduled 31 + 29 minutes in a 1 hour slot. This is because new rules came in saying you could not have an advert break in a 30 minutes children's show only between them. By making one of the slots 31 minutes you are allowed an advert break in the middle.

So lots of ways you may see more adverts even if the total if you stick watching all 24 hours of a channel is unchanged.