The Caretakers' Forum

I see Sky are offering a basic package of a Sky Stream puck device for £19 a month as a Black Friday Deal (18 month contract).

I was wondering if it was worth me paying £19 a month to get additional channels. The wife often asks if I can get Gold.

I found a list on the Sky website that lists all the channels you get for your £19 a month. The list doesn't include any additional packages like Sports, Cinema, Kids or UHD. This is just the basic channels (I've also removed any non-English channels too as I don't watch them).

I have a VU+ Linux Satellite box and compared the channels that I can currently watch to those you get on the basic Sky Stream package. Many of these Free To View (FTV) channels are available to watch on Freesat without a subscription too.

The Sky Stream package lists 139 channels. 94 of those channels are free to watch via satellite anyway. Leaving just 45 channels I would gain if I took up Sky's offer.

The channels I would gain are:

NBC News NOW - 507
Sky Sports News - 409
alibi - 130
Animal Planet - 140
Comedy Central - 135
Comedy Xtra - 136
Crime + Investigation - 142
Discovery - 138
Discovery Turbo - 146
Discovery History - 147
Discovery Science - 148
E! Entertainment - 117 (118 in Wales)
Eden - 162
Eurosport 1 - 416
Eurosport 2 - 417
Ginx eSports TV - 418
GOLD - 131
ID - 141
National Geographic - 144
National Geographic Wild - 145
Sky Replay - 160
Smithsonian - 167
TLC - 139
Sky Atlantic - 108 (109 in Wales)
Sky Challenge - 159
Sky Comedy - 112 (113 in Wales)
Sky Crime - 110 (111 in Wales)
Sky Documentaries - 111 (112 in Wales)
Sky History - 115 (116 in Wales)
Sky History 2 - 143
Sky Max - 109 (110 in Wales)
Sky Nature - 113 (114 in Wales)
Sky Replay - 160
Sky Sci-Fi - 116 (117 in Wales)
Sky Showcase - 106
Sky Sports Mix - 411
Sky Sports News - 409
Sky Sports Racing - 410
Sky Witness - 107
MTV - 137
MTV Music - 350
MTV Hits - 351
MTV 80s - 353
MTV 90s - 352
B4U Music - 712

Are any of these channels any good? Even with the Black Friday offer, I really don't think there are many additional channels I would watch that make the £19 a month worth it.

I'm no good at working out percentages (maybe a cleaver member can work this out), but if out of 139 channels, 98 are free to watch anyway, that's got to be 70-75% of Sky's channels are free to watch without subscription. Something Sky would like to keep quiet about I'm sure.
I think I'd have a hard job to convince the wife to spend an additional £19 a month for just those few additional channels.

I'm not a fan of sport and don't watch many modern films these days, so I wouldn't be looking to adding any additional packages. I appreciate that is why many of you have Sky.

Nat Geo and Discovery are the only ones I'd want.

So I wouldn't personally pay £19 a month.

The thing is.

If you don't miss them now, will you watch them anyway?

We got shot of sky earlier this year. the only channel that we miss ( and it is more the wife than me) is Sky Sports News.

Are the GOLD programs on the UKTV catchup?

I'd argue not, with the competitiveness in this market now and various streaming sites. You can get a lot of this content through other suppliers at cheaper rates- or even free. For example

Iplayer
Netflix
More4
Prime
Apple
ITVX
Historyhit
britbox
Youtube
Vimeo
Metcafe
Dailymotion
Pluto TV
Hulu
Tubi TV

they all have the box sets, and with regards to Gold and classic british comedy/TV, shows like steptoe, rising damp, goodnight sweetheart, Sickness and in health, even love thy neighbour can all be found on youtube

I've got sky stream, mainly because some people in the house want sky sports. It's OK, does a reasonable job of bringing together all the other streaming services.

If you are going to sign up for it then an existing sky customer can refer you and both get a £75 voucher (let me know if you want a link :-))

You should also click through a cashback site like topcashback (
https://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/stevengeering )

This will give you £70 cashback on an 18 month contract at the moment. If both of those are successful (sometimes one cancels out the other, but when I signed up both worked) that brings the 18 month price down to effectively £197, or about £11 a month.

The other option is to get it on the £22 a month rolling contract, you don't get any of the deals above, but can cancel at any point so could give it a go for a month or 2 and cancel if you don't use it.

If the wife wants Gold, the wife gets Gold.

Probably be frowned upon here but if you happen to know anyone with a "stick" they can probably direct you to someone who can put a third party app on there which will gain you access to more than you'll ever know you needed including films and series on demand...

Not condoning or encouraging, I just think these companies are con artists charging subscripitions PLUS every show is sponsored and theres 15 minutes of adverts minimum per hour...

I’ve long been thinking of ditching Sky, I have the Sky Movie package but rarely watch any of the repeated films.
I mostly watch the Discovery and Nat Geo channels with the occasional movie on one of the Freeview channels. It’s a shame the Discovery and Nat Geo channels are not on FTV

Most of the Sky channels just repeat the same things over and over during a month and any subscriptions will rise over time so take that into account, another problem with Sky is during a bad storm it does fail so i have to switch to the normal TV antenna and use Freeview.

OXSET wrote: ↑20th Nov 2023 at 10:11am Probably be frowned upon here but if you happen to know anyone with a "stick" they can probably direct you to someone who can put a third party app on there which will gain you access to more than you'll ever know you needed including films and series on demand...

Not condoning or encouraging, I just think these companies are con artists charging subscripitions PLUS every show is sponsored and theres 15 minutes of adverts minimum per hour...

a friend of mine "wink wink" has had a stick for over 4 years now.. software just updated (£50 for the year) over 10k channels (admittedly not all english but every conceivable channel you can think of and more !)