Ditching SkyQ+Miniboxes - is there are true alternative?

[crystaltips]

I pay £82pm for my Sky package and it’s time for me to put my £984 per year to better use.

I’ve failed to find a true workable alternative, considering the main rubs being I need Sky Sports, BT Sports and multi-room (I have two football mad boys).

So I am looking for a (legal) alternative. I’ve spotted that Now TV from Sky offers Sky sports, but I can’t see how that would work multi room.

Ideally I wouldn’t have cables routed all over my house, I like the wireless aspect to the Sky mini boxes. But if the numbers worked I’d put up with daubing my house with PVC!

My current Sky package is…

I pretty much have the full Sky package..
- SkyQ and 4 mini boxes
- Movies and Cinema
- Atlantic/boxsets/whatever
- UHD
- Multi room
- Netflix ‘pro’/multi (it was less cost than going direct at the time)
- BT Sports (again, less cost with Sky considering Sky was assumed)
- Sky Go app multi (it would be the end of the world losing this)

Our current TVs are a mixture of Smart and non-Smart. 2 are smart and three are not. The two smart TVs are Samsung and have Netflix etc apps.

My ideal is to have it work as simple as Sky, so content is accessible from one UI, with recordings possible and shareable to each room so we don’t need a degree just to watch TV.

I can cope losing content (except the Sports for my boys), if it means we don’t get to watch the next equivalent Game of Thrones series or can’t watch yet another Marvel boreathon then so be it.

We have a dish.

I was hoping I could just go to the Freesat website and find out what I needed to buy. I found some discussions on forums but nothing that seemed to cater for the multi room and Sports aspects.

Sky always say they’re the best, maybe they are right.

With the potential savings I would be happy to have someone install it, I’m not technical and I don’t fancy scaling ladders.

Largely I think it will come down to paying for Now Tv Sky Sports, BT Sports and Netflix separately but whether there is a device that will incorporate these and delivery them to any room is the question. I guess we could cope with Sky Sports in one room, if it’s dependent on the Now TV device.

My research tells me we’d be paying…

£33.99pm Now TV Sky Sports
£10.99pm Netflix (or £15.99 if like for like)
£16pm BT Sport (BT offer a Sky Sports package for £41 but I couldn’t figure out if I needed BT TV too)

Total £60.98

Damn it, Sky know what they’re doing don’t they! So it’s an extra £20 for their combined annoyingly easy to use solution!

Cheers

Edited by crystaltips on Monday 25th July 08:24

[nordboy]

Now TV is streamed, so no need for any wires and you can watch from any room. We did exactly this and saved a load, the only catch for me is that technically I'm still giving my money to Sky, as they own Now TV!!!

I use a fire stick with the Now TV app, if you have a smart Tv then the app is downloadable, the wife uses an Apple TV box, so many ways of getting it.

[Fore Left]

Now TV is not HD whatever they tell you. Sky Q is the best interface there is.

I pay £32 / month for Sky with Sports all HD. You just need to play hardball and let the cancellation play out. They will make you an offer.

I use one of these to stream it to other TVs around the house (was a bit of a faff getting it set up but it works OK with a slight delay on the other tvs).

[LotusMartin]

Cancel and wait until a week before it ends then call them - You’ll get a much better deal.

Aim for £50-55 a month for everything.

[crystaltips]

Fore Left said:

Now TV is not HD whatever they tell you. Sky Q is the best interface there is.

I pay £32 / month for Sky with Sports all HD. You just need to play hardball and let the cancellation play out. They will make you an offer.

I use one of these to stream it to other TVs around the house (was a bit of a faff getting it set up but it works OK with a slight delay on the other tvs).

Thank you Fore Left. Actually, the £82 (£60ish without BT and Netflix) was their offer compared to £120+. So I feel for what I have it’s the lowest I’ve heard of.

Does your £32 include BT Sport too?

[crystaltips]

LotusMartin said:

Cancel and wait until a week before it ends then call them - You’ll get a much better deal.

Aim for £50-55 a month for everything.

Thanks Lotus Martin, that’s pretty much where I got to - I quit and then called them back. Their offer was around £60 without BT Sports and Netflix so adding them added ~£22. So I reckon I am close to their floor price.

The problem is I have to pay for BT and Sky sports so from a start it’s pretty high.

[crystaltips]

nordboy said:

Now TV is streamed, so no need for any wires and you can watch from any room. We did exactly this and saved a load, the only catch for me is that technically I'm still giving my money to Sky, as they own Now TV!!!

I use a fire stick with the Now TV app, if you have a smart Tv then the app is downloadable, the wife uses an Apple TV box, so many ways of getting it.

Superb thanks Nordboy I hadn’t realised Now TV was an app too, that does help cheers.

[crystaltips]

crystaltips said:

My research tells me we’d be paying…

£33.99pm Now TV Sky Sports
£10.99pm Netflix (or £15.99 if like for like)
£16pm BT Sport (BT offer a Sky Sports package for £41 but I couldn’t figure out if I needed BT TV too)

Total £60.98

It seems BTs offering of £41 includes both BT and Sky Sports, still unsure if I need a BT TV box for that tho? So in theory it could look like this..

£41 BT and Sky Sports
£10.99 Netflix

Total £52

It’s just the multi room Freesat solution I need to find.

[outnumbered]

crystaltips said:

It seems BTs offering of £41 includes both BT and Sky Sports, still unsure if I need a BT TV box for that tho? So in theory it could look like this..

£41 BT and Sky Sports
£10.99 Netflix

Total £52

It’s just the multi room Freesat solution I need to find.

For BT, you need their box(es) and as far as I know, you need to switch to them for Internet as well (the broadcast TV is distributed via IP multicast, so only works on their network).

[Fore Left]

crystaltips said:

Does your £32 include BT Sport too?

It does not.

[crystaltips]

I expect the answer to this is for me remove all services from Sky except for Sky Sports, BT Sport and Netflix then I expect I’ll arrive at a figure close to £50, in the £40s if I can brave leaving and calling back at the 11th hour again.

Knowing Sky and their cleverly annoying business model it’ll not be cheaper and I’ll end up staying at £82 and wake up in a cold sweat in 2035 realising I’ve paid them £20k over my life time!

It’s either that or or burn all our TVs and/or become even more grumpy than I already am and stop my kids watching sports.

Essentially it’s my fault for making my boys into football :-)

[bristolracer]

You need to put it into perspective.
Yes it seems a lot, but look at how much enjoyment you all get from it. It's £5 per person per week. How many bottles of beer/bottles of wine would you do in a week?
What other hobbies could you do for the same pound per hour?
I know Sky seems expensive, but it works well, some of the other suggestions of boxes and apps will drive you mad.
Just be savvy with them, negotiate at renewal to keep costs down.
If you want the sport you have to pay, you may as well do it with equipment that works.

[crystaltips]

bristolracer said:

You need to put it into perspective.
Yes it seems a lot, but look at how much enjoyment you all get from it. It's £5 per person per week. How many bottles of beer/bottles of wine would you do in a week?
What other hobbies could you do for the same pound per hour?
I know Sky seems expensive, but it works well, some of the other suggestions of boxes and apps will drive you mad.
Just be savvy with them, negotiate at renewal to keep costs down.
If you want the sport you have to pay, you may as well do it with equipment that works.

Yep you are right. That lack of frustration is worth £something isn’t it

[wiggy001]

Sky Q just works across many rooms and on the iPad too, so reluctantly I am in the same position of keeping it. A couple of things to consider at renewal time:

1. The retentions department will price match against a new customer deal, so if you can get better as a new customer let them know and they will match it.

2. As a new customer you can normally get cachback via quidco etc, so cancelling and signing up in the other half's name and a different bank account for the direct debits might be worthwhile, albeit a bit of a faff as you need to return the kit then have it sent back out again. When I did this I was moving from Sky HD+ to Sky Q, so wasn't an issue.

[crystaltips]

wiggy001 said:

Sky Q just works across many rooms and on the iPad too, so reluctantly I am in the same position of keeping it. A couple of things to consider at renewal time:

1. The retentions department will price match against a new customer deal, so if you can get better as a new customer let them know and they will match it.

2. As a new customer you can normally get cachback via quidco etc, so cancelling and signing up in the other half's name and a different bank account for the direct debits might be worthwhile, albeit a bit of a faff as you need to return the kit then have it sent back out again. When I did this I was moving from Sky HD+ to Sky Q, so wasn't an issue.

This time around I actually quit then out of frustration at the final stage when I’d negotiated a deal and they want £20 admin fee. Told him I was done. He then offered to wave it but I told him it was too late and left.

Then after the family kicked off I called back the next day expecting to pay more and somehow got though to what must have been that same dept you mention. Got an even better deal.

So I feel the deal I am now is as low as I can get them, so at least I know where I want the price to be.

But yep I may drop some of the movies because they’re not that great and Netflix has more than enough.

There definitely is a market for a more holistic Freesat solution I reckon.

I’d pay £500 for a Sky 5 room replacement if all I was left paying was for the sports and Netflix. So long as it worked seemlessly and I didn’t have to faff about with cables and nasty software.

But this thread has served to make me feel better that it’s not just me and I’ve pretty much got it as good as I can. I know people that are paying nearly double what I do for the same service!

I do think Sky would fair better if they were a bit more straight forward and honest with their pricing. Surely it would attract more customers and keep more without the game we play pretending to leave. Unless there are more people out there than we realise that never check their bill?

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

crystaltips said:

Unless there are more people out there than we realise that never check their bill?

This.

I paid for an internet for five years after I'd had another service installed

I think Sky is brill, and for the same price as 4 pints of lager a week it ain't bad value.

[crystaltips]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

crystaltips said:

Unless there are more people out there than we realise that never check their bill?

This.

I paid for an internet for five years after I'd had another service installed

I think Sky is brill, and for the same price as 4 pints of lager a week it ain't bad value.

Haha must admit I’ve been guilty of similar. Just in Jan I went through all my DDs reduced/culled and saved myself nearly £500pm!! Outrageous!

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

crystaltips said:

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

crystaltips said:

Unless there are more people out there than we realise that never check their bill?

This.

I paid for an internet for five years after I'd had another service installed

I think Sky is brill, and for the same price as 4 pints of lager a week it ain't bad value.

Haha must admit I’ve been guilty of similar. Just in Jan I went through all my DDs reduced/culled and saved myself nearly £500pm!! Outrageous!

All that saving & you are worried about Sky?

[OMITN]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

crystaltips said:

Unless there are more people out there than we realise that never check their bill?

This.

I paid for an internet for five years after I'd had another service installed

I think Sky is brill, and for the same price as 4 pints of lager a week it ain't bad value.

Like all the subscription businesses, their financial model is all based on averages. So for every customer on the absolute best deal, there’s another drifting along at full price.

As a savvy consumer the key is to keep on top of this stuff all the time. In fact, I must go and check where my Sky contract is up to…and then gird my loins for the usual dance of the wmpty threat to leave….

[V8covin]

Have you priced up Virgin ?
BT Sport is included in most packages