Sky Fail To Reach Agreement With Discovery

50Twuncle

Sky currently has 12 million subscribers in UK and Eire - so a £1Billion payment - over 5 years (£200M per year) would cost £1.38 per customer per month - surely that is affordable to Sky ?

50Twuncle

If I leave sky - will I still be able to watch catchup TV on the free to air channels ?
I understand that if I want to record - this will cost £5 per month (where does it state this) ?
Also - what channels will be viewable in HD ? BBC/ITV/CH4 etc
We have a HD (non Q) box !!

[Deleted User]

50Twuncle wrote: »

Sky currently has 12 million subscribers in UK and Eire - so a £1Billion payment - over 5 years (£200M per year) would cost £1.38 per customer per month - surely that is affordable to Sky ?

It won't be Sky paying though, it'll be us, and if they pay Discovery that then everybody else will want similar deals. They have to balance everything and pay what they think the service is worth.

50Twuncle wrote: »

If I leave sky - will I still be able to watch catchup TV on the free to air channels ?
I understand that if I want to record - this will cost £5 per month (where does it state this) ?
Also - what channels will be viewable in HD ? BBC/ITV/CH4 etc
We have a HD (non Q) box !!

You'll get 11 HD channels on Freesat but I think only the BBC iPlayer as catch-up (may be wrong on that)

http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/

Edit: I think they charge £10 to enable the recording functions

50Twuncle

Colin_Maybe wrote: »

It won't be Sky paying though, it'll be us, and if they pay Discovery that then everybody else will want similar deals. They have to balance everything and pay what they think the service is worth.111
You'll get 11 HD channels on Freesat but I think only the BBC iPlayer as catch-up (may be wrong on that)
http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/

Edit: I think they charge £10 to enable the recording functions

Right - and a freeview viewing card costs £25 but may need replacing regularly (at £25 a shot) ?

[Deleted User]

50Twuncle wrote: »

Right - and a freeview viewing card costs £25 but may need replacing regularly (at £25 a shot) ?

I'm certain you meant a Freesat-From-Sky viewing card, but an expired Sky viewing card already provides all the free to air channels. No one cancelling Sky needs to pay £25 for a new viewing card.

VisionMan

50Twuncle wrote: »

Sky currently has 12 million subscribers in UK and Eire - so a £1Billion payment - over 5 years (£200M per year) would cost £1.38 per customer per month - surely that is affordable to Sky ?

Heres the murky, in the dark bit. Firstly, the statment said 'Close to £1Bn to 'The Sky Group', not Sky UK. So is that a Pan European deal? Probably.

Some have also postulated that its a ten year deal, at £100m per year. Skys user numbers are estimated to be 10m so if it was just the UK (which is unlikely) that works out at about a £1. So, to give you a comparison -

HBO on Sky (10m users) on a 5 year deal costs Sky £55m per year, £275m over 5 years (thats not going to last).

BT Sport on Virgin (3.5m users) costs £75m per year, £225m over 3 years.

Sheesh, talk about muddy waters...

50Twuncle

Alias_Omega wrote: »

^^ 75% off with account credit is about the best you can get. The complete bundle (Sports, Movies, HD) is £30 per month..

Original Bundle is basically freeview...and worthless. Not even the £18-20 they will go. The use of the "record" function can be retained for £5 per month...

Where does it state £5 per month ?

Chrishazle

Update from yesterday - the callback came on my mobile instead of landline, having told them to use the landline as mobile reception here is bad. Could not hear them, so this morning went online chat again and requested a callback, came in 10 mins, best offer was 30% discount for 10 months on new 12 month contract (I'm well out of contract after about 25 years with Sky!), £9.60pm compared to the £28pm I'll save with BT TV. So - Sky for us finishes on 2 March and our Sky+ HD box becomes a Freesat-from-Sky box using current Sky card. BT TV stuff will be here and activated 16 Feb, we'll get the Discovery and Eurosport channels (and a number of others) in HD instead of current SD (including BT Sport!). Have to figure how to get the BT TV to our 2 other TV's as current magic eye system won't work, may well buy 2 small BT TV boxes off Ebay instead of trying to mimic our current system.

Small point for those thinking of switching to BT - on the web page where I ordered BT TV the engineer install option is £44. However, when I phoned the help line to query using the wifi extender between different phases (my house has 3 phase!) I was offered free engineer installation. Worth a try - they could only book to 14 Feb today, so I'll call again next week to book for 17 Feb.

[Deleted User]

50Twuncle wrote: »

Where does it state £5 per month ?

You have to phone them up to have the record function restored and the price seems variable. I've seen £5 and £10 both mentioned but I've also seen cases where they'll leave it enabled when you cancel the TV package but that seems dependent on your history with them and possibly how nicely you ask.

teddysmum

Two years running, when I have cancelled tv and not accepted any offers, before switch off, they have offered the Sky+ functions free of charge if you keep their line and broadband. There is no catchup, though, but a Smart tv can supply that, but no recording.