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I called Sky About Free-Sat
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[Deleted User]
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hi just thort some people may benifit from this i called Sky on there special number and to my horror your actually paying £20 for 3 channels ITV1 CHN4 CHN5 thats it in addition no freeview (terestrial) channels have been added and no ex sky contract channels have been added.
so to summerise just dont bother with it as its just a big con at the moment sky are in this game for one thing and that CASH and they have lost customers and Freeview is currently out selling sky so this is there bid to come back with nothing special to offer
allthough it Will benifit people who cannot recieve freeview thanks for reading and i hope this is of great help and use.
let me know your feeling or if anyone knows more than i do about the channels being added?
Thanks Ricky B
so to summerise just dont bother with it as its just a big con at the moment sky are in this game for one thing and that CASH and they have lost customers and Freeview is currently out selling sky so this is there bid to come back with nothing special to offer
allthough it Will benifit people who cannot recieve freeview thanks for reading and i hope this is of great help and use.
let me know your feeling or if anyone knows more than i do about the channels being added?
Thanks Ricky B
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SKY have never made any claim that there would be channels currently in subscrption packages being offered under this FTA/FTV system.
The whole point of this package is to offer the 25% of the UK population without any DTT coverage a digital choice and hopefully (for SKY) a small percentage will go on to take out a subscription at some point.
I have to say Freeview is better value for your £20 (+ another £20) for a box, but where there's no Freeview signal I think its better than having no digital choice at all.
I've got both and reckon that if you don't want to part with too much cash Freeview wins hands down...
tasty tasty very very tasty, it's very tasty. :cool:
Like me...no ITV mux viewable on DTT at my house, analogue signal is really pretty poor too. If the weather is just right I lose Channel 4 but gain some Dutch channels....
Tell me which is the rip off there.
All the BBC channels intended for the UK are FTA on Dsat (no card required), ITV2 right now is a subscription channel on Dsat and ITV3 isn't officially on Dsat.
Only ITV can decide if they want to broadcast ITV2 and subsequent ITV channels either FTA or FTV on Dsat and as epsilon says there may be a status change after the current negotiations finish between SKY and ITV.
if I already have one of the FTV-cards with the yellow house from pout or from Sky (23 pounds at the end of last year) is there any need to buy a new one from Sky?
Are there any extra channels included that I don't already receive?
Will they switch of the cards they sold last year?
No.
No.
I certainly don't expect the likes of Sky One and UK Gold to be made available on this service, but why not Sky Travel or Sky Sports News? It's also dissapointing that ITV2, TMF, FTN etc arn't available - though I know that's down to the channels in question and not Sky.
In my opinion, Freeview offers a far better subscription-free service - at least theres some decent channels instead of text in games, films sourced from VHS played on a Windows PC, and loads of shopping channels.
I just hope that the poor channel line up doesn't put people who have the Freesat service off subscribing to Sky...
DP
If you are new to digital tv then it might do!
I personally would still consider the option of signing up for £1 and then downgrading from the top package after one month to the basic package.
Brand new equipment,fully installed, one years guarantee, plus viewing card.
But for those who don't want to do that, I still think £150 is good. After all what's £150 nowadays.............peanuts.
The one thing that would really help Sky would be if you could buy a complete Sky package, equipment,card etc, from a shop and install it your self easily,even if you know nothing about sat.
That's one of Freeview's main points, very often(but not in every case) you can just buy the box and plug it in.
I don't think that is an entirely balanced view, many people just go out and spend £40+ on a Freeview box take it home and get some more channels. If you have to replace your ariel then the cost will go up but not everyone has to do that. The £150 only covers "standard" installation so you can end up paying more or being told it isn't possible. When you finally get it installed you gain access to the extra BBC channels a handful of ok'ish channels unless the ITV channels go FTA. The actual channel line up on Freeview presents much better value for money.
FTV card, refurbished Digibox and installation, £150
Normal discounted installation, new Digibox, one month top package, eleven months value pack and then cancel, approximately £190, or if you have the Family Pack for eleven months £255.
Kevin
If the £150 includes a viewing card,why do you care if ITV are going to go FTA. ?
The answer is quite simple - if ITV go free to air then you are most likely to get ITV2 (currently subscription only on DTV) and ITV3 (once confirmed its status on DTV).
Even if you get the skyfreetoview card you will only be getting ITV1 (all regions of course - but only via other channels) if ITV for FTA you might also find that like the BBC all the ITV regions will appear on the EPG - another reason why ITV are holding out to see what Sky do with the new EPG perhaps?
Many thanks.If ITV do go FTA when is this most likely to happen ?
Because only ITV1 is FTV with the card, perhaps if ITV as a whole go FTA then I will be able to get ITV2 and ITV3 over time.
Perhaps I should have read down a bit more to discover a bunch of people had already answered this...
I really do hope that the whole of ITV go FTA it would probably fill all my viewing needs. Even better if C4 and C5 go the same way. Personally I would be happy with a national ITV rather than all this regional nonsense, I understand the arguement for localisation but most people can get ITV via terrestrial, it just seems a massive waste of space to broadcast all the ITV regions via satillite. Ironically in the US sat market it is normal for you to pay an additional fee to recieve your local stations over Sat.
I think people got their hopes up thinking of this as Skys answer to FreeView. When really it is more of a method of getting Sky systems into homes and then second selling them further services. I don't personally have a problem with that the Take up of SKY has obviously stagnated alittle, by having people buy in to satillite TV delivery without a initial contract will no doubt bring a whole new group of customers Skys way. It is a shame it isn't a full blown FreeView type package but it would have messed up Sky's current package line up. I think Sky has been able to get away with alot in the past, and quite frankly unless there is a competitor to Sky up there broadcasting via Satillite they will continue to do so. Freeview has proven that people do want a bit more viewing choice but also that they don't want to pay a great deal for it. Perhaps when FreeView take up figures overtake SKYs customer base SKY will change its pricing stuctures and viewing packages. The value pack is horrifically bad value for money but the family pack doesn't seem 'too' bad. Perhaps if Sky rejigged things a little and offered a service just a little bit better than the FreeView/TuTV services combined for a figure much closer to the TuTV price point they would gain a lot more viewers. However we will most likely have to wait until the
switchover before SKY has any incentive to do this. Until then I guess they will continue to milk the cash cow subscriber base.
Its a shame in many ways that when BSB and Sky merged that the control of the EPG service wasn't forced to stand alone. Then the contractural agreements with ITV etal with SKY would have been cleaner. It amazes me that the BBC were able to go FTA and stay on the EPG but perhaps the government smoothed that one. Going FTA and not being accessable via the EPG is just not a workable solution SKY hold all the cards.