MSE Blog: Living without Sky – we did it!

A question about : MSE Blog: Living without Sky – we did it!

Back in 2012 I did a TV viewing audit and decided we weren’t watching Sky channels enough for it to be worth paying for them.

Read MSE Andrea's full blog:
Living without Sky – we did it!

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Best answers:

• Is this real? I've never seen/used Sky - and have no desire to get it. I wouldn't even know what to get, what I needed, or how to use it.
  I've got a freeview box attached to an old portable telly somebody lent me.
• I'm sure I could live without Sky. It isn't something necessary to my survival.
  But I still like having it.
• I had Sky for over 15 years but only had it for the football. I then realised I only watched 1 or 2 games a week for (back then) a whopping Ј64 a mth so I cancelled it. I missed the football but didn't miss Sky. Or the prices.
• I not had a tv for 13/14 years now and guess what I survived.
  I do have a netflix sub and use the on demand players. But before that I use to listen to the radio all the time.
  Yours
  Calley
• I've been complaining for ages that mse doesn't mention freesat on its digital TV pages, so its good to see it's being discussed as a viable alternative at long last!
• "However, after a year of paying more than we wanted to for Sky, we decided to get a Freesat box for about Ј200."
  https://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/faq/#3
  if you already have a sky box/dish, you can get a 'freesat from sky' card for Ј25 which saves buying a new box. You may not even need this, I didn't but it's some years since I cancelled Sky briefly.
  I think you may lose recording & on demand functionality from a sky+ box; allegedly there are ways around this but I couldn't suggest/endorse any other than the 'pay sky Ј10 a month' option.
  Disclaimer: I have worked for sky, but I still think this is potentially a good saving.
• Freeview offers the 5 main channels with virtually all the original programming available in UK. All the other Freeview channels are repeats of UK and American programmes as is most of Sky programs. Why pay Sky for repeats ? We won't.
  In addition when we cancelled Sky years ago we needed our bank to recover money from Sky continuing to take it incorrectly under Direct Debit, so we will never trust them again, even if they offered enough programs to be worth their fees.
• Fantastic article.
  Another that shouldn't even have been published unless you just like oversharing your life.
• All fair and true comments you have made above, Tropez. And I agree with all of them. I believe its fair to say Sky is now TV for the affluent and not the masses. Sky via discount however, is the way to go and via such a route can provide serious value for money. And with the explosion of competition Sky now faces, these are interesting times....
• Anyone can live without Sky. I like it for easiness really. I watched quite a few channels (80% free though) but I like the freedom to browse the other channels, watch and record in HD and being able to watch them out and about on Sky Go. Not bad for Ј16.50 a month (half price for a year natch - would never pay full price)
• we got a beagle and with the amount of walking one of those needs in the evening/weekend we found that by getting rid of Sky we could save ourselves Ј60+ a month.
  What annoyed me though was when we cancelled we were bombarded with offers of discounts of up to 50% for a year.........its one of OH's pet hates as he feels that if they can afford to do this when he's leaving then why can't they do it at any other time
• Now TV is well worth a look if you've got Sky that you don't use much but would miss if you got rid.
  The list of programs not available on the Entertainment Pass gets smaller and smaller.