Thinking of ditching Sky?

whittman

Quick question - is anyone thinking of cancelling their Sky subscription or moving to a cheaper package because of tightening household budgets. Just wondering what peoples' views are on this - just been discussing it with a few people!

biologikal

whittman wrote: »

Quick question - is anyone thinking of cancelling their Sky subscription or moving to a cheaper package because of tightening household budgets. Just wondering what peoples' views are on this - just been discussing it with a few people!

I don't have Sky myself, but know some who do, and many are thinking of cancelling, particularly with FreeSat available now - many didn't realise that there are alternatives to Sky. The only ones who will probably keep it are the ones who are big into watching sports.

Fat_Fingers

i canceled sky while back. Never looked back.
I have all the channels i want to watch and all for free. Freesat is great alternative to Sky.
I had a friend over last night and he was shocked to see i have all BBC's, ITV's CH4's and other without Sky. He never heard of Freesat before :cool:

snaps

yes my father and a few of his friends have cancelled the sky sports package (Uk package) and the basic channels and just kept the card for the free to view channels. Think he is just thinking of having setanta from now on. £32 a month for him was getting to much. i think setanta in Uk is £10 a month.

mumhaabu

I know several people who have either scrapped Sky and gone FTA or cut down from €68.50 for Movies and Sports to the more basic packages costing like €22 to €30. Sky is one of the first things to go in the recession, others include waste collection, backyard burning has also increased exponentially in the last few months especially in rural areas.

Mobile Phone usage is another victim as is the lunches and breakfasts, however I hear sales of Clingfilm and Tinfoil are up as people migrate towards packed lunches and flasks of tea and coffee, a guy who I work with has calculated that since he stopped paying sky, carried a packed lunch and stopped buying the daily paper he is saving nearly €1,500 a year. :eek:

dhaumi

mumhaabu wrote: »

I know several people who have either scrapped Sky and gone FTA or cut down from €68.50 for Movies and Sports to the more basic packages costing like €22 to €30. Sky is one of the first things to go in the recession, others include waste collection, backyard burning has also increased exponentially in the last few months especially in rural areas.

Mobile Phone usage is another victim as is the lunches and breakfasts, however I hear sales of Clingfilm and Tinfoil are up as people migrate towards packed lunches and flasks of tea and coffee, a guy who I work with has calculated that since he stopped paying sky, carried a packed lunch and stopped buying the daily paper he is saving nearly €1,500 a year. :eek:

Interesting! I'm short of money myself, and downgraded Sky to the basic package. Now I found I'm paying Sky just to be able to watch the irish TV channels on top of the TV licence....ridiculous! Money down the drain, I barely watch TV now, I mostly watch stuff from my computer, no ads, no fee, brilliant quality...

Joseph Kuhr

I'll be living off chick peas before I get rid of sky....My package is only €54 p/m including Sky Sports. It's not a lot of money in this day and age, €50 is the new €20. I watch the Setanta matches on the internet, saving myself €15 p/m, quality is brutal but I'm just not prepared to pay anymore for a few extra footie games.

I notice that a lot of people who are cutting back will still manage to go out every other weekend and blow €100+ on booze and eateries.

biologikal

dhaumi wrote: »

Money down the drain, I barely watch TV now,...

Think of it as money into someone elses pocket, and you might think a bit more about how you spend your money.

Joseph Kuhr

biologikal wrote: »

Think of it as money into someone elses pocket, and you might think a bit more about how you spend your money.

You're paying for a service, something people work to provide for you. Of course money is going into someone elses pocket...just like it does evertime you get paid.

Apart from the regular ITV, BBC, Channel 4 channels the FTA channels are complete muck imo.

And the RTE situation is a bit of a scam. The fact that we pay for it through our licence and its not FTA, but thats the governments fault not Sky. They are rolling out the Irish DTT service soon which will mean with an English FTA card combined with the Irish service you'll be able to get all the regular channels free. Pity its about 10 years behind the times.

biologikal

Joseph Kuhr wrote: »

You're paying for a service, something people work to provide for you. Of course money is going into someone elses pocket...just like it does evertime you get paid.

Yes, but the institution I work for get value for money. I wouldn't call watching endless repeats, 15 minutes of ads an hour, football, and having to pay for the "service" for any amount, money well spent. In fact, with all the advertising that's been shown on TV, they should be paying me to watch their channels, IMO.

Joseph Kuhr wrote: »

Apart from the regular ITV, BBC, Channel 4 channels the FTA channels are complete muck imo.

IYO; I find that there is always something worth watching when I want to watch a bit of telly.

Joseph Kuhr wrote: »

And the RTE situation is a bit of a scam. The fact that we pay for it through our licence and its not FTA, but thats the governments fault not Sky. They are rolling out the Irish DTT service soon which will mean with an English FTA card combined with the Irish service you'll be able to get all the regular channels free. Pity its about 10 years behind the times.

Irish channels are free through analogue, and will be for the next 3 years. The difficulty with not being FTA on satellite is well documented. Governments fault? I would have thought it was RTE's fault, with all the imports they buy.

watty

The main Irish channels will be free on Terrestial Digital too, no Boxer required.

Joseph Kuhr

biologikal wrote: »

Irish channels are free through analogue, and will be for the next 3 years. The difficulty with not being FTA on satellite is well documented. Governments fault? I would have thought it was RTE's fault, with all the imports they buy.

Most management companies do not allow ariels. Ever watched analogue through rabbit ears on an LCD screen? It'll have you vomiting if not enducing an epileptic fit. Its the goverments fault for only getting the finger out now with a DTT service, 10 years after the rest of Europe. Glad to see it coming now anyways. And glad to see they're using the latest technology capable of Hi-Def.

btw, the only reason they're doing it is because the EU is forcing every member to switch off analogue in 2012.

Trampas

Joseph Kuhr wrote: »

I notice that a lot of people who are cutting back will still manage to go out every other weekend and blow €100+ on booze and eateries.

I agree with you.

Reyman

I can't understand why anyone bothers paying Sky's big fees. It's a total waste of money, unless you're a sport addict!

I just installed a Freesat/ cum Free to air system tuned into Hotbird/Astra 1/Astra2.. There's over 1,000 channels and it's all free. If I want RTE I get perfect reception from a separate antenna.

Incidentally I have to thank Watty, Tony and Byte for their excellent advice. Professional and much appreciated by a 'beginner'

MarkK

Joseph Kuhr wrote: »

btw, the only reason they're doing it is because the EU is forcing every member to switch off analogue in 2012.

The EU are not forcing this.

There are good reasons for doing this:
It frees up frequencies (including VHF and MMDS) to be sold off for other uses. It's a more efficient use of frequencies which are a scare resource.
It brings a wider availability of more channels.

dhaumi

Joseph Kuhr wrote: »

I'll be living off chick peas before I get rid of sky....My package is only €54 p/m including Sky Sports. It's not a lot of money in this day and age, €50 is the new €20. I watch the Setanta matches on the internet, saving myself €15 p/m, quality is brutal but I'm just not prepared to pay anymore for a few extra footie games.

I notice that a lot of people who are cutting back will still manage to go out every other weekend and blow €100+ on booze and eateries.

You're probably loaded with money, and won't suffer from inflation. People like me who (will) switch to Freesat, are just looking for value for money, we shop around, we like promoting competition whenever possible. On the European scale the Sky is a rip-off, especially for irish citizens.You're dead right on the booze expenses, but that's more a "culture" thing, I certainly wouldn't spend that much money on booze.

But as someone said, the government kinda put us in that situation by waiting till a deadline is given to start the DTT and by selling the RTE rights to Sky...
Watty, you were saying RTE will be available on DTT for free. My question is : Will it be available when Boxer starts its broadcast or later on? I live in galway, any chance DTT could be available next year?

Dr. Nick

whittman wrote: »

Quick question - is anyone thinking of cancelling their Sky subscription or moving to a cheaper package because of tightening household budgets. Just wondering what peoples' views are on this - just been discussing it with a few people!

Sounds like a question a journalist would ask..........if he had just registered and had one post.

Reyman

Joseph Kuhr wrote: »

I'll be living off chick peas before I get rid of sky....My package is only €54 p/m including Sky Sports. It's not a lot of money in this day and age, €50 is the new €20. I watch the Setanta matches on the internet, saving myself €15 p/m, quality is brutal but I'm just not prepared to pay anymore for a few extra footie games.

I notice that a lot of people who are cutting back will still manage to go out every other weekend and blow €100+ on booze and eateries.

You may be right. But just remember what €54 pm means. If you live for the next 50 years you're handing Sky a total of €32,000 for the privilege of watching what you can already mostly watch free !!

dunser

Hey where I can I get Free sat/Free view

whittman

whittman wrote: »

Quick question - is anyone thinking of cancelling their Sky subscription or moving to a cheaper package because of tightening household budgets. Just wondering what peoples' views are on this - just been discussing it with a few people!

Funny to see this thread considering what I was talking about yesterday.

When I lived with my parents we had the analogue Sky service and had everything - multichannels package, movies and sports. When we moved to digital in December 2000 we dropped the sports. Just yesterday they were talking about dropping Sky altogether, after showing them the prices they decided to save 50% and drop the movies, they didn't realise it added an extra €28 onto the price. They also decided to drop the kids mix while they were at it.

Tony

dunser wrote: »

Hey where I can I get Free sat/Free view

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