I remember that too, it was one of their huge selling points - no ads during movies (on Sky Movies/HBO). But then along came Orange, and along came the ads.

quickymart:

 

I remember that too, it was one of their huge selling points - no ads during movies (on Sky Movies/HBO). But then along came Orange, and along came the ads.

 

I don't believe they play ads during movies on Sky Movies & Soho

No not during the movies, but after Orange started up they appeared on Orange, both during and in-between programmes. I remember a flatmate in 1995 getting quite p'd off with all the ads on Orange when he was trying to watch something.

This is EXACTLY why I left sky!

There is no pleasure in watching, when the show is broken with ads!

I have not regretted leaving, not for a moment. I hardly watch freeview either, for the same reason.

There are better alternatives without ad breaks.

Silly SKY TV, you had me (and lots of others), and lost me (and lots of others)!

quickymart: I remember reading somewhere that advertising revenue made up a very small portion of their income/profit - self promotional stuff would be almost nothing - so why persist with ads during a show? 

As other have already mentioned - padding. More ad's means they don't have to buy more content to keep their viewers entertained. Looking through the Sky magazine in my works meal room, I can see that they also repeat programs quite a lot. I would imagine they have a set budget for programming (which would work hand-in-hand with the broadcasting rights they've purchased, and is in turn directly affected by their sports costs) so to keep from repeating shows even more often they *have* to pad them out.

From my perspective, as a non Sky subscriber: Watching Sky during meal breaks is enough to convince me not to become a subscriber. However, from what I've read and am hearing, Martin Stewart isn't a head-in-the-sand "this is how we've always done it" person and is making some good moves. I think the purchase of Lightbox (proven content delivery infrastructure) is a particularly good one for the company and signals a clear step towards a digital future.

You have to remember that Sky is a bit of a behemoth and changing how it does business is a monumental undertaking which is going to take time, so there's likely to be a series of small steps before anything fundamental appears for the viewers. In some respects it's not too dissimilar to what Jason Paris is taking Vodafone through at the moment.

Edit: As per a few other comments being made here, I was a Sky subscriber in the 90's but have no intention of becoming one again. Not being bothered about sports does put me in a different basket to a large number of their viewers though.

Hiamie:

 

This is EXACTLY why I left sky!

 

There is no pleasure in watching, when the show is broken with ads!

 

I have not regretted leaving, not for a moment. I hardly watch freeview either, for the same reason.

 

There are better alternatives without ad breaks.

 

Silly SKY TV, you had me (and lots of others), and lost me (and lots of others)!

 

A benefit of Vodafone TV is that you can time-shift live TV to avoid ad breaks. E.g. We can turn on the VTV on at say 5:30 pm, restart The Chase and watch all of that and skip the ads. When that finishes at say 6:15, we can restart One News and watch all of that skipping the ads.

So we watch 1-1/2 to two hours programming effectively without ads - with only the minor inconvenience of using the 20-sec FF button a few times. Not perfect but not bad either.

Makes me think it’s not only Sky at risk, it’s FTA TV as well. FTA might get ratings for the shows people watch - but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re watching the ads in those shows. Advertisers must be taking this sort of thing into account and it must be affecting FTA revenues.

I often wonder how FTA survives at all in this country. I can't believe there are many who still watch it linearally. Yet literally nothing ever changes. The same content/commercial/content formula of 20 years ago is still used unchanged today. Who puts up with that? My cheap Chinese box, like every other one on the market, can also time shift and I use that on the extremely rare occasion that there is a FTA film I actually want to watch, and can't easily find elsewhere, but I watch almost no FTA and very few commercials. These days the news and Country Calendar is about it. 

Bear in mind you're literally posting on a website called Geek zone. Not every one is like you. A lot of people still watch broadcast media (FTA, Sky, etc.) and have no plans to change.

They are going to be very disappointed when everything goes poof.

I thought that SKY broadcasts "Jones" channels on behalf of its owner aka Jason Gunn?  Therefore is such advertising being commissioned by the owner of the channel. 

In this day and age... ad breaks can be skipped by time shifting your viewing habits. You dont have to watch shows bang on the time of start anymore. 

Without advertising....there would be no TV, Radio, Newspapers, Facebook, Instagram......we now live in  world where advertising is right in front of us daily, every minute.... no matter how you are consuming content.  

As for netflix, their pricing will continue to rise over time....

Goosey:

 

Without advertising....there would be no TV, Radio, Newspapers, Facebook, Instagram......we now live in  world where advertising is right in front of us daily, every minute.... no matter how you are consuming content.  

 

Yes there would, you would just have to pay with money instead of time and attention. A much better deal IMO, anyone that values their time shouldn't be consuming free services for entertainment.

Goosey:

 

I thought that SKY broadcasts "Jones" channels on behalf of its owner aka Jason Gunn?  Therefore is such advertising being commissioned by the owner of the channel.

 

 

 

As for netflix, their pricing will continue to rise over time....

 

 

 

 

 

If adverts are the Jones channel funding, why is it inside the $50 roughly package cost, start up plus entertainment required.

Should be in the $25 start up package. I like old programs but not paying an additional $25 on top of $25 to watch.

Mean while on $10 Prime  Video add free, America’s greatest hero, Monk, Married with Children, and other content.

I’ve seen speculation that Netflix will introduce adds at some point and the one I watched on YouTube expected they’d lose 25% of their subscribers, I don’t know how they came up with 25%. Maybe they will have an add free price and a price with adds.

Edit: With the adds start up should be $6-$10 on Vodafone TV, you’re not paying for a decoder rental, my opinion.

What about if you watch via sky on demand? do those shows still have the adverts?

No, but there’s no Dolby digital, it’s inferior to broadcast quality.

And as far as I can tell there’s no Jones content on demand, and only some of the doco programs there so not all content included.

Apsattv:

 

What about if you watch via sky on demand? do those shows still have the adverts?

 

TVNZOD has ads but way fewer ads than watching live - and TVNZOD via Freeview has even less than that (or more - not sure which way round - but there is a difference with the Freeview version).