Price Difference Sky Ireland and UK

enfant terrible

Did Sky ever explain why we pay about 13.50 euro more per month for sky 6 packs + sports than people in the UK.

I think we pay about 3.50 euro more per month for HD.

Hagar

The answer is very simple, just bend over and I'll show you. :rolleyes:

enfant terrible

So they've never given a reason?

Acoustic

i asked them and they said

england is a completely different country with diff values in their economy etc

complete bull imo

indiewindy

What about contacting price watch in the Irish Times, it would be interesting to hear an official explanation

MisterAnarchy

enfant terrible wrote: »

So they've never given a reason?

"Greed is good"

Mossy Monk

enfant terrible wrote: »

So they've never given a reason?

Do they have to if people continue to pay?

ArseBurger

VAT in the UK is 17.5%

VAT in Ireland is 21.5%

For a start.

Also, there are regulator fees in both countries for broadcast licenses. Which are different too.

No conspiracy. Move along.

snaps

ArseBurger wrote: »

VAT in the UK is 17.5%

VAT in Ireland is 21.5%

For a start.

Also, there are regulator fees in both countries for broadcast licenses. Which are different too.

No conspiracy. Move along.

VAT has nothing to do with it as all sky subs are charged at the UK VAT rate as they are a BRITISH broadcasting company and based in the UK. Personally i cant see how they get away with it and im surprised the Irish government havent tried to change it so the Irish economy see's the tax returns to boost our ecomomy and tax revenues as im sure its a fair bit of dosh involved.

bk

snaps wrote: »

VAT has nothing to do with it as all sky subs are charged at the UK VAT rate as they are a BRITISH broadcasting company and based in the UK. Personally i cant see how they get away with it and im surprised the Irish government havent tried to change it so the Irish economy see's the tax returns to boost our ecomomy and tax revenues as im sure its a fair bit of dosh involved.

I'm surprised UPC don't push for it, it must put them at a competitive dis-advantage, having to pay higher Irish VAT.

BTW UK VAT is currently 15%

JDxtra

They get away with it because they can, simple as that. In general, people are happy enough to pay it so why should they lower their prices?

Fat_Fingers

This has been covered many times. As long as customers here are prepared to pay higher premium there will be no reduction in price. If Sky was to start losing market share here due to people canceling their subscriptions then they would have to lower the price to attract customers. In UK they are competing with Freeview (30+ channels free on digital terrestrial TV), cable providers (Virgin, NTL, Tiscali..) IPTV (BT), Top Up TV, Freesat (Free Digital satelite TV , 100+ TV channels).
Here they are competing against Chorus ntl (140+ channels) and Free terrestrial TV (4 channels).
So market is very different.

I'm only surprised that Freesat didn't make bigger impact here considering current economical climate. There are still large group of people who never heard of Freesat, another thing that i see over and over again even in urban centers is people paying for Sky in order to receive RTE because they don't know how else to get it.

enfant terrible

indiewindy wrote: »

What about contacting price watch in the Irish Times, it would be interesting to hear an official explanation

I can't see any place on their site to contact price watch.

Mossy Monk

indiewindy wrote: »

What about contacting price watch in the Irish Times, it would be interesting to hear an official explanation

Aren't the Irish Times and Sky owned by the same people?

No.

They are owned by the irish times trust [whoever they are]

http://www.irishtimes.com/about/p_theirishtimes.htm

Qprmeath

enfant terrible wrote: »

I can't see any place on their site to contact price watch.

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pricewatch/

Conor Pope is the man you want.

Fighting Irish

enfant terrible wrote: »

Did Sky ever explain why we pay about 13.50 euro more per month for sky 6 packs + sports than people in the UK.

I think we pay about 3.50 euro more per month for HD.

I bolded the reason why Sky are charging more. Its fairly simple really. Sky are a business.

snaps

just done a comparrison between sky uk and sky ireland. Its shocking.

Variety pack with 4 mixes, sky sports pack and espn, HD pack:

UK sub: £58 (€65)
Ire sub: €87 (£76)

For a month!

Wizard007

It's a service, you pay for it.
It's optional.

jaggiebunnet

snaps wrote: »

just done a comparrison between sky uk and sky ireland. Its shocking.

Variety pack with 4 mixes, sky sports pack and espn, HD pack:

UK sub: £58 (€65)
Ire sub: €87 (£76)

For a month!

I make it closer to 67 euro for the 58 quid a month based on the exchange rate I got this morning on my c/card, but you are right, tis ridiculous, but as the man says, as long as we keep paying for it they will happily keep charging us more..

NOGMaxpower

Power in numbers,

Why dont we start a petition, get as many people we can to sign up who are sky customers. Then go to sky and say we demand equal pricing.

Im telling you the financial regulator are a complete joke and have no interest in protecting Irish consumers.

Minstrel27

NOGMaxpower wrote: »

Power in numbers,

Why dont we start a petition, get as many people we can to sign up who are sky customers. Then go to sky and say we demand equal pricing.

Im telling you the financial regulator are a complete joke and have no interest in protecting Irish consumers.

Sky do not care about any petitions, especially if those who signed it are still paying. Instead of a petition why don't you and everyone else that are outraged cancel your subscriptions. It is the only way that Sky will take note.

Sky do not have to answer to any regulators in this country as they are UK based.

ch750536

Educate.

Freesat is free. If you have sky, cancel it. You can get a free to view card from them (albeit slightly dodgily) for £20. Details

Sure, you don't get as many channels, but you get enough. It's for free.

Even without the card you get loads of channels.

snaps

jaggiebunnet wrote: »

I make it closer to 67 euro for the 58 quid a month based on the exchange rate I got this morning on my c/card, but you are right, tis ridiculous, but as the man says, as long as we keep paying for it they will happily keep charging us more..

Ive found that credit card companys dont give you the proper exchange rate. Many times when ive been up north and used my CC ive been given a worse rate, so i dont use my CC anymore for my shopping trips!

Yes, this country is starting to get me down now, Ive struggled the last year. Im on a 3 day week, all the bills are coming in now and im going to have more heating oil as ive used so much this winter.

I dont have sky and never will. I have the FTA stuff and now Irish DTT (Another rip off having to pay sky 20e a month just so you can get the Irish channels in decent quality)

I just looked at the costs on the sky ireland website as i had a UK sky flyer in a paper/magazine. Im just shocked at the difference in price.

JDxtra

Just reading through these forums you can see more and more people are downgrading or looking to cancel Sky entirely.

It’s a quick solution to save a few quid each month, and many can easily do without the extra channels. I myself downgraded to the bare minimum subscription because I find their packages to be poor value.

Sky only care about one thing – profit. If more and more people do the same (cancel or downgrade) they will eventually get the message that their pricing is just not competitive enough.

This is especially true now with Freesat, DTT and even a re-energized UPC banging on their door. I mean, you can save a fortune using UPC for TV, phone and broadband. In Ireland Sky only do TV, so they are already losing their competitive edge.

Zardoz

People are paying through the nose for Pay TV in Ireland

According to Dataxis’ DigiTV service, as of Q309, UK and Ireland households are spending an average up to 6 times more than Greece and around 3 times more than Germany for pay TV per month.

As part of DigiTV, Dataxis analyses pay TV revenues by country, operator, access technology (cable, DTH, terrestrial, IPTV) on a quarterly base.

Revenues taken into account are: access fees, pay TV options, STB rental and VOD.

This ranking presents the average monthly spending for all households. It reflects the level of penetration of pay TV versus free TV and the ARPU level in each country.

http://dataxisnews.com/?p=9833

John mac

snaps wrote: »

Ive found that credit card companys dont give you the proper exchange rate. Many times when ive been up north and used my CC ive been given a worse rate, so i dont use my CC anymore for my shopping trips!

This site gives a proper rate , you have to add 1.75% to get proper exchange rate.(what you actually pay)

enfant terrible

You'd think UPC might be vocal in their adverts about how Sky treat their Irish customers compared to their UK customers.

They should have this written on every one of their adverts

Maybe UPC charge more in Ireland than the do in the other countries they operate in so Sky would just fire back with that.

Minstrel27

enfant terrible wrote: »

Maybe UPC charge more in Ireland than the do in the other countries they operate in so Sky would just fire back with that.

As an example. The UPC service in the Netherlands is not the same as the one in Ireland. Sky using this as an example would be similar to UPC saying Sky Italia is cheaper.

muincav

Minstrel27 wrote: »

Sky do not care about any petitions, especially if those who signed it are still paying. Instead of a petition why don't you and everyone else that are outraged cancel your subscriptions. It is the only way that Sky will take note.

Sky do not have to answer to any regulators in this country as they are UK based.

+1...I totally agree and have been saying that for years. I dont see why anyone would want to pay for a "service" which ignores the customer and most of the time is only made up of repeats.Its time to hit Sky where they have been hitting you--in the pocket!

Kristopherus

Well, are UPC not hitting back with their current offers.

enfant terrible

Was reading this thread
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1204721

I suppose Sky could use the fact they pay for RTE to be on Sky (transponder cost, EPG Slot, encryption) as a reason for our higher sub.

BBC pay Sky in the UK to be on the their platform.

loyatemu

enfant terrible wrote: »

Was reading this thread
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1204721

I suppose Sky could use the fact they pay for RTE to be on Sky (transponder cost, EPG Slot, encryption) as a reason for our higher sub.

BBC pay Sky in the UK to be on the their platform.

do they? I thought Sky were obliged to carry the 5 main terrestrial channels - perhaps BBC pay for the other 6 digital channels to be carried. And I thought RTE also paid Sky a fee to carry and encrypt their channels.

Tarabuses

snaps wrote: »

Ive found that credit card companys dont give you the proper exchange rate. Many times when ive been up north and used my CC ive been given a worse rate, so i dont use my CC anymore for my shopping trips!

So how do you pay - the banks certainly don't give you the "proper" exchange rate for sterling cash?

snaps

Tarabuses wrote: »

So how do you pay - the banks certainly don't give you the "proper" exchange rate for sterling cash?

The shops do, like tesco/ asda. Pay in Euro's

ScrubsfanChris

enfant terrible wrote: »

Was reading this thread
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1204721

I suppose Sky could use the fact they pay for RTE to be on Sky (transponder cost, EPG Slot, encryption) as a reason for our higher sub.

BBC pay Sky in the UK to be on the their platform.

But on the Northern Ireland EPG you get BBC 1+2 and RTE 1+2, but pay the same subscription as the rest of the UK residents.

Basically not enough people are complaining for Sky to take any interest.

testicle

snaps wrote: »

VAT has nothing to do with it as all sky subs are charged at the UK VAT rate as they are a BRITISH broadcasting company and based in the UK. Personally i cant see how they get away with it and im surprised the Irish government havent tried to change it so the Irish economy see's the tax returns to boost our ecomomy and tax revenues as im sure its a fair bit of dosh involved.

First of all, yes I realise this is from last June.

If an EU Company does a certain amount of business in another EU country, then they must charge customers from that country, that country's VAT rate.

For example, for an Irish Company doing business in the UK, i believe the threshold is £75,000, and €100,000 for the reverse (UK Co doing business in Ireland)

Sky would be above this limit, so must charge Irish VAT.

It's the same reason that prices go up when you select an Irish delivery address on amazon.co.uk

JDxtra

...but they don't. Sky charge us UK VAT and always have.

snaps

JDxtra wrote: »

...but they don't. Sky charge us UK VAT and always have.

Yes sky charge UK VAT to Irish customers. when UK VAT went down subs went down..........??? When UK VAT went up Irish subs went up.

When Irish VAT came down Irish subs stayed the same, Well went up as UK VAT went up!

cgarvey

testicle wrote: »

Sky would be above this limit, so must charge Irish VAT.

Nowhere near as straight forward as that, unfortunately. It depends on the category of goods/services being sold, and the complicated rules around determining where the goods are consumed. There's all the detail you want on revenue.ie (but it does get complicated; be warned!).