Like a lot of people, we've bought a SSN annual pass in the Black Friday special, the last two years.  Last year, Sky left it fairly late before announcing the deal ($365 for the year).  It sort of seemed maybe Sky wanted to wait as long as possible for people to renew at the non-Black Friday renewal rate, before announcing the special.  It also could be that they look at how many people cancel their annual pass before the auto-renewal date, to determine what if any deal there will be this year.

Based on that, a few friends and I have all cancelled our annual passes early.  i.e. now.  The strategy being, the more people that indicate that they won't auto-renew at the non-special rate, then the more likely Sky are to offer another good Black Friday deal.  Who knows, if this will have any effect at all - but there is absolutely no downside.  i.e. you still get full access up to the expiry date and if no Black Friday deal appears, you can still renew then anyway (or a week or two afterwards).

So I encourage everyone with annual passes to cancel them now.  Hopefully we can send some sort of signal that will benefit us all at renewal time.