Who has ditched Sky/Virgin and not looked back?

Robby1988

I can't be the only one who has sat scrolling through all the channels on Sky wondering what on earth I am paying for. Well we took the plunge a while back when we moved house and cancelled Sky altogether and returned the equipment.

Now in our new house, we just have a Fire TV Stick (we don't even have a TV aerial) and it's honestly all you need in my opinion. 

Broadband : £35pm (BT Fibre)
Fire TV Stick : £30 one off cost
Netflix : £9.99
Amazon Prime : £7.99
ITV Hub + : £3.99 (we watch a lot on here so worth it for no ads)

Cheap as chips and honestly we have never been short of anything to watch. If you want to watch UKTV type stuff you can just get a Britbox subscription for a fiver and watch everything with no ads and cancel when you please. If you want sports you can pay for them without contract through NOW TV or the BT Sport app, I personally have Sky Sports for the summer cricket season then cancel it off. We are never paying for TV we aren't watching. Literally all the programming on Sky/Virgin I can think off can be accessed without contract through smart TV apps. Don't miss any of the recording facilities on Sky as you can get everything On Demand anyway. On the rare occasion we watch TV live, you can do so through the channel apps.

Lots of young people are consuming TV this way nowadays, my brother in law works as a Sky engineer and thinks he could be in trouble inside the next 10 years. The whole process of having a dish drilled onto the side of your house or your path dug up to lay cables and then committing to an expensive contract for a TV package seems increasingly old hat. You just don't need to do it.

Neil_Jones

You can do better than £35pm for the internet and better than £7.99 for Prime.

If you really want the key Sky channels but you can live without Sky+/Tivo, Now TV is the way to go.

brewerdave

Neil_Jones said:

If you really want the key Sky channels but you can live without Sky+/Tivo, Now TV is the way to go.

To be honest , that is the only reason I stay with Sky now that the Sports coverage has been so diluted. And as long as I get a decent renewal deal in August ...........

pbartlett

or you can just use freeview / freesat and not pay anything at all as i have for the last 10 yrs.

JJ_Egan

Never used either that the OP asks about .

But i don't want 99% of TV channels .

powerful_Rogue

Was the same with Virgin, set scrolling through the Tivo for ages to find something to watch.

Now we have VM BB and landline.

No TV licence and just use Netflix, Prime Video and Youtube premium.

iniltous

I got rid of Sky TV a while ago , the basic pack no movies or sport, ( saving £33 ish a month ) and got a ‘deal’ with BTTV as BT supply my broadband ( couple of £’s per month ) but TBH , although I use the ‘box’ and watch BT Sport , I rarely watch the other subscription channels , and if it were not for that I would just use Freeview, I’m probably at least £500 better off and haven’t really missed Sky TV at all , seemed all I watched was Simpsons re runs anyway

J_B

pbartlett said:

or you can just use freeview / freesat and not pay anything at all as i have for the last 10 yrs.

Freeview's been around since 2002, so, I've been doing that for 19 years!!! 

SCARGI1965

brewerdave said:

Neil_Jones said:

If you really want the key Sky channels but you can live without Sky+/Tivo, Now TV is the way to go.

To be honest , that is the only reason I stay with Sky now that the Sports coverage has been so diluted. And as long as I get a decent renewal deal in August ...........

brewerdave said:

Neil_Jones said:

If you really want the key Sky channels but you can live without Sky+/Tivo, Now TV is the way to go.

To be honest , that is the only reason I stay with Sky now that the Sports coverage has been so diluted. And as long as I get a decent renewal deal in August ...........

You're right about the Sports,content is a lot poorer now.
I got rid of Sky earlier this month and haven't missed it at all.
I bought a very good freeview recorder(Manhatten model) which cost me £120 and easily does what i had the sky q for.
Most programmes you can get on catch up or on demand anyway but i can record also with this. I had a check on the sky q recordings and most i had taped were on freeview channels anyway!
Paying for sky,imo,you're basically just getting a recorder and the box sets and have to pay for the signature/entertainment first just so you can add on any Sports. In addition you're tied down to an 18 month contract.
If there is a really decent tv series on sky I'll just get a Now pass for a month.
I also have a seperate Amazon Prime and Netflix app through smart tv.
Each to their own of course but I can't see the value in these Sky packages any longer.

BeerSavesMoney

I had sky for a while, same as you wondered what I was paying for. It seemed I was paying them to deliver adverts to me. Even the sky on demand stuff had adverts!

I left and have been using Netflix, Prime, sometimes subscribe to Now TV if there’s something I want to watch then cancel.

I don’t see any need to be able to record anything anymore as all of the shows I watch are available on demand! 

SCARGI1965

BeerSavesMoney said:

I had sky for a while, same as you wondered what I was paying for. It seemed I was paying them to deliver adverts to me. Even the sky on demand stuff had adverts!

I left and have been using Netflix, Prime, sometimes subscribe to Now TV if there’s something I want to watch then cancel.

I don’t see any need to be able to record anything anymore as all of the shows I watch are available on demand! 

Yeah,agree with you. I probably could get away without any recording device but it's useful if i want to keep a programme for a while and i was responding also to the earlier post where someone had said they only kept sky for the recording.
The freeview recorder i got is now fully owned and paid for in a few months by what I would have otherwisespent on the sky subs.
Like you say,it's difficult to sometimes see what you're actually paying sky so much for.
If you just want sports with them,it should be available on it's own without having to pay 20 or £30 on a basic package first + then the sports cost on top.