Sky apparently no longer selling Sky Q to new customers!

Detail_Merchant

If you go to https://www.sky.com/tv/sky-q you used to be able sign up as a new customer to get satellite TV from Sky with a Sky Q box.

Now on that web page it says:

We've unplugged Sky Q. Plug in Sky Stream for less.

Sky Q is no longer available to buy online. But you can take your viewing to the next level with Sky Stream

I knew they were pushing towards Sky Stream, but I'm surprised they've dropped Sky Q sales already.

la531983

Be a cold day in hell before I willingly take on a stream product either with Sky or Virgin, I switched to Virgin and when the equipment arrived it was the streaming box, awful, lasted less than a day with it before I cancelled and retained my wired Sky box, which I accept may see end of days at some point.

Detail_Merchant

I only upgraded from Sky+ to Sky Q last month, so it's fun to learn that I'm back on a defunct product
I did try the stream/flex box from VM, for a while (in parallel with Sky+), when I re-contracted my broadband a couple of years ago, but it didn't seem to offer anything extra beyond what the TVs built in app did, just extra complexity, so I stopped using it pretty quickly, and sent it back early.

I don't think Sky will want to spend any big money re new satellites, so when the current ones start failing I guess Sky Q will become unviable. But until then there's no reason for them to not keep taking existing customers' money.

MouldyOldDough

Sky is dumping all satellite links by 2029 - they want us all to transfer to streaming !

That's what is happening - if you want Sky TV - It's stream or nothing

Detail_Merchant

MouldyOldDough said:

Sky is dumping all satellite links by 2029 - they want us all to transfer to streaming !

That's what is happening - if you want Sky TV - It's stream or nothing

If the satellites carry on working past 2029 then my guess is that Sky will carry on taking money from paying customers past 2029.
Nothing is cast in stone re 2029.

JSmithy45AD

Detail_Merchant said:

MouldyOldDough said:

Sky is dumping all satellite links by 2029 - they want us all to transfer to streaming !

That's what is happening - if you want Sky TV - It's stream or nothing

If the satellites carry on working past 2029 then my guess is that Sky will carry on taking money from paying customers past 2029.
Nothing is cast in stone re 2029.

True but if they've stopped selling them to new customers they must have a stash of boxes to replace faulty existing ones. How big that stash is will determine how long they continue as sooner or later, it won't be financially viable. They will be trying every trick in the book come renewal time to force people to swap including increasing the prices for Q. There's still no My5 App on Q and never will be now. Expect the other licenses to start to dry up, one by one.

Detail_Merchant

They're still letting customers pay for Sky+ which they haven't had any spare boxes for for a long time, so I don't think that will be a factor.

I agree that they will keep pushing more and more re Sky Stream, but in the end, while the satellites are working, if a large enough customer base are still watching and paying for satellite based Sky (+ and Q) then it's in their commercial interest to keep doing it.

dnpark38

If Sky stop their Dish transmissions will my LG TV which has Freeview and Freesat stop working on Freesat?

Boohoo

dnpark38 said:

If Sky stop their Dish transmissions will my LG TV which has Freeview and Freesat stop working on Freesat?

Well you have 4 years left if it ends 31/12029.

There is talk that they could move to Astra 19.2e and extend the sat contract but for Sky it would depend on how many customers they have left on satellite.

JSmithy45AD

dnpark38 said:

If Sky stop their Dish transmissions will my LG TV which has Freeview and Freesat stop working on Freesat?

What do Sky have to do with Freesat?

dnpark38

JSmithy45AD said:

What do Sky have to do with Freesat?

They both use the same basic transmission.