Sky Sports SD channels to close?

dublinman1990

I'm not a Sky subscriber myself but I have came across some posts containing excerpts of letters from Sky on the Digital Spy forums. The posts say there that the Sky Sports channels in standard definition will close in the UK & possibly in Ireland from the 1st October. This probably means that if you wanted to get Sky Sports channels via your Sky box in your property; you will have to receive them in HD only.

If you have a non HD sky box at home; you could be in trouble as customers will just lose the channels with no other replacements available. Just FTA, movie channels (probably) & others will remain on your subscription unless you upgrade the box to HD to continue watching Sky Sports HD.

Going from these letter excerpts in the UK; Sky are charging customers an extra £2 a month for this change to take place by then. But they have different ways of interpreting how it's reflected in Sky customer's bills in the UK because loads of their customers are on different contracts. I presume that will happen here as well if the channels close here in Ireland.

An excerpt of the letter from Sky (Beware it contains UK subscription prices)

Hello *******,
In sport, fine details can make all the difference. So on 1 *October, we're replacing our standard definition Sky Sports channels with Sky Sports HD.

It also means your subscription will go up by £2 a month (rather than the £6 you'd pay for Sky Sports HD now). These changes will take place from 1 *October.

You can continue to receive all 8 dedicated channels with the Complete Sports pack for just £22 a month for 18 months.

You'll see your new price below and it will show in your October bill.

I don't have sky myself but I have an uncle & possibly some other family members who have Sky Sports channels as they live in Dublin.

It was probably expected to happen here anyway as VM Ireland have told their customers via letters sent to them recently that they had to upgrade to the Horizon boxes to continue receiving Sky Sports HD in their homes. But there are restrictions in place with VM here as they only allow customers to view it on one TV in their house. If you wanted a multiroom subscription with VM Ireland; you cannot receive Sky Sports HD on additional TV's in the house.

Any thoughts on this news from Sky so far? Will it become a benefit to you or not as I know that Sky subscriptions are very expensive here for a very long time. Also the rebrands of the Sky Sports channels with their recent EPG changes have happened here simultaneously in both Ireland & the UK on the same day. This switch off of Sky Sports in SD will probably happen here on the 1st of October as well as in the UK. Sky Ireland will have to give significant notice to their customers via letters & emails etc to say that this will happen to them probably between now & the beginning of October.

icdg

I’d reserve judgement on this until it becomes clear what it actually means. I’ve read the thread on DS and the only thing clear is that people really aren’t clear on which intrepetation is the case

1. Sky Sports SD is to close.
2. Sky Sports SD and HD will cost the same.

It’s also not clear whether not it applies to Ireland. If Sky Sports SD does close in the U.K., it will almost certainly close here - they will not keep playing out the SD versions just for Ireland. But Sky in Ireland does its own thing pricing wise now.

Mountjoy Mugger

As a communal dish subscriber, I perish the thought of SD sports closing.
Almost on a daily basis, I find myself switching to SD to watch Golf or Football on SD due to signal loss on the HD channels.
Sky's "in your apartment" contractor have no interest in resolving. Not enough complaints to justify a callout.

fman

It's all still very vague and based on the lack of backlash here, doesn't look like many have received letters.
On one hand it would make some sense if they followed the sky cinema hd default move.
But on the other, are all non hd boxes out of the way, or at least enough that they can push this?

dubmick

Vodafone only have Sky Sports in SD so it will be interesting to see what happens there.