Sky increasing their prices by $2.18 per month

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Ultimate Geek
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#619894 4-May-2012 23:25

Basically, I told them I considered their letter an insult to their customers' intelligence.

+ 1 , could nt agree more .

Zippity

683 posts

Ultimate Geek

#619904 4-May-2012 23:55

to those of you who want to moan and bitch about sky

who is forcing you to subscribe?

go get a REAL life

richms

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#619921 5-May-2012 00:45

My 12 month contract is forcing me to keep it till that runs out, but stuff paying the full price and then the full price to be able to borrow the mysky off them.

PQ is crap, content isnt all that much, with it most of the time on the music channels which I can basically do with vevo on the unlimited slingshot connection or the unlimited youtube addon on snap etc.

I dont even bother watching discovery on it anymore, the sub 360P divx quality just makes it unbareable. The shows on box are really old and only in SD, so screw that.

The day the contract is up I am getting it cancelled unless there is HD discovery, HD sky 1 and a decent stepup in picture quality on the SD channels.

Richard rich.ms

Genfres

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#619944 5-May-2012 03:03

sky is a monopoly. Im surprised its only a $2 increase.
Isky dont you have to pay extra to download content you already saw on sky using ur bandwidth cap. Why should you pay for its development on a basic package.
They make it sound like the hosting rights for an event is something new. They make enough money that they can pay more than anyone else for big events.
Closed captions and subtitles have been around for how long?

GeoffisPure

459 posts

Ultimate Geek

#619946 5-May-2012 06:21

I'm disconnecting Sky at the end of my half-price 12 month contract too. With TiVo being an excellent substitute for mysky, I don't see how Sky's pricing justifies the few extra channels it brings.

networkn

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#619971 5-May-2012 08:35

There's no rule saying that a price increase must equate to an increase in value.

Say I resell widgets for $10 each, and my costs for widgets go up from $6 to $8...

I have a few choices, but the obvious 2 are:

- Continue selling widgets for $10 and lose money (let's assume this includes dropping to an unacceptable ROI)
- Raise the price of my widgets to perhaps $12

Now, it's the same widget but it costs the end user $2 more. There's less value there, but I strongly doubt you're going to say that I (the reseller) should have absorbed the cost increase and started losing money.

This is just an illustration of a principle, I know Sky TV is more complex than a widget - I'm suggesting that your implied expectation that a price increase should give you a value increase can, in some circumstances, be an unreasonable one.

There are always choices. Unfortunately though, sometimes the choice includes forgoing something you like because you can't justify the price.

Cheers - N

Yes ok, I do understand that. In this instance however their excuse for the increase in price is saying they HAVE increased value which is nonsense. It used to be Sky had no Adverts, now they do. They have a greater number of subscribers than ever before, meaning profits SHOULD be proportionally higher, in fact their COSTS should be lower as I'd expect if they have any brains, they would get discounts for volume, greater efficiencies and economies of scale. Companies increase prices, it's a fact, and to further your point, power companies are among the worst, almost never improving value with increased costs.. I guess with Sky, it just feels wrong. :)

Spyware

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#619974 5-May-2012 08:44

Their infrastructure is old and obsolete though. A satellite mostly full of DVB-S mpeg2 streams which can't be converted to DVB-S2 (50% increase in bitrate) H.264 without replacing all those 1998 technology analog interface decoders. Instead of spending money on migrating to new decoders they go DVB-T2 and 11 channels stuffed on to a single 35 Mbps mux, low bitrate delight again. I can't follow their logic at all when a bouquet of premium HD channels could have been a showcase for DVB-T2 H.264.

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Dynamike

167 posts

Master Geek

#619983 5-May-2012 09:09

This would have been a more honest letter to send:

"Dear Stock Unit

We increase the cost of our subscriptions every June. This year will be NO exception.

We are working hard to decrease the value you get from our services.

We have reduced the number of channels available to our basic customers. This includes Triangle Stratos. This trend will continue with the removal of TVNZ 7 at the end of June.

As programming is purchased in US Dollars, the cost to us of purchasing programs has reduced. We have decided to pass these benefits on to our shareholders rather than to our customers.

We have increased the advertising content on most channels. We intend to continue adding more advertising content over the next twelve months.

Our iSky service continues to hold the Internet rights to our programming. This ensures competition from rival companies will not occur using the new UFB platform.

We have finally added closed captions. We should have done this since day one, but we really don't care about deaf people.

Sky Television
Propaganda Department"

jamesweather

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#619995 5-May-2012 09:52

I pay $18.70 a month so I can use the MySkyHD to record the Freeview channels. Worth it for me, and they do chuck in a couple of different free ones each month - this month BBC Knowledge.
I'm happy.

Pwned

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#619997 5-May-2012 09:59

We cancelled our Sky subscription the moment they removed ESPN from the basic plan. Never missed them(Sky) really. It's all about the money, money, money.

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#620002 5-May-2012 10:18

jamesweather: I pay $18.70 a month so I can use the MySkyHD to record the Freeview channels. Worth it for me, and they do chuck in a couple of different free ones each month - this month BBC Knowledge.
I'm happy.

Hold on... You *PAY* to record Freeview programs that are otherwise... Free?

Why not just get a TiVo and be done with it?

Seriously, people complaining have options.

th3r3turn

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#620005 5-May-2012 10:36

Zippity: to those of you who want to moan and bitch about sky

who is forcing you to subscribe?

go get a REAL life

or torrent tvshows you want!

surfisup1000

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#620028 5-May-2012 11:30

JimmyH:
For me it's not so much a marginal price change (and, to be honest, I don't really care about $2.18 a month in the scheme of things). It's about value for money. That means the price in relation to content and the viewing experience. Hell, I would happily pay another $10-15 a month and count it a good bargain, if the quid pro quo was:

The problem with sky is that there are so many must-have extras.

The basic sky package is extremely poor. Sky took the good stuff and packaged into pay channels.

Now you have to pay $10 just to watch HD, when HD is surely now standard.

So, it is not just a $2.18 issue.

It is a sky sports ($10), multi-room ($15, why don't they let you buy the decoder outright?), hd ticket ($10), Soho (previously free content now costs $10).

Sky are the masters of up-selling .

Talkiet

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#620033 5-May-2012 11:42

surfisup1000:
Sky are the masters of up-selling .

You bet they are, but we need to keep some perspective here... Sky TV isn't a Basic Human Right - like shelter, food or broadband (Tongue FIRMLY in cheek there)... Unappealing as it may be, we have the option of not having Sky TV and making do with FTA options.

When I last checked, there wasn't a gun to my head making me pay for Sky TV. Maybe I'm on an old contract though and the new contracts do in fact include a gun to the head - I'm not sure :-)

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

shrub

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#620069 5-May-2012 12:38

I got the 12 moth half price deal and that's going to be it for me. Why should i pay $ for TV that is 6+ months old and in SD when I now get 160gig of data(Thanks telecom:)). Lots of HD torrents as the shows come out - RSS feeds are awesome.

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