Is it Time to Ditch SKY TV? More Choice Then Ever [March 2025]

Free TV or Is it?

OK lets just clear one thing up, in the UK, No TV is free, when I say this, I mean, Live TV broadcasts (of any network UK or other country Based channels) when viewed within the UK, you have to have a TV licence.

We Spoke about this in an earlier Video and Blog 

Premium TV Via a Satellite Dish or Internet

So with all these premium options nowadays do you really want to spend the money with sky 

Well first off and it's something I've said for many years is that sky hold the rights to a lot of football and top end sport so if you want live access to these sky is still you already option you might not need a dish anymore but subscription to them would be what you need 

Love Sport?

So leaving sports aside let's look at their other offerings their sky branded channels for entertainment and movies is pretty good with the exclusive rights to a lot of American dramas 

One thing we have noticed recently is a lot of the sky content is coming on to other streaming platforms such as Netflix 

It seems that sky is trying to promote itself through these other streaming platforms using its older series on content that it has the rights to sell on

Of course sky itself like Virgin media is a multi-media company and you can buy both telephone internet and mobile contracts through them as well as the entertainment packages for your TV 

Tell me the Price

Today's cheapest package with sky is £15  a month which includes sky entertainment channels Netflix and access to Discovery plus. 

Obviously a few years ago there was no need for these separate packages as the Discovery channels were built into the sky platform but now they are essentially working and operating as a separate entity

More Content

If you want access to movies then you're talking £25 as a starting price 
In my personal opinion the selection of movies they have is not as good as it used to be because again they used to have almost exclusive rights for a lot of this content and that's no longer the case 

It does seem looking at the sky website that currently the prices they list are for getting a sky stream device not a q box with a dish so the channels will come down your internet connection. 

To be Free or Not Free

So what are the 'free' options that you can sign up to or buy your own devices. 

Of course the first and obvious choice for me would be the Freesat platform using the same system as sky but just allowing you to access the free content BBC ITV channel 4 etc you buy the box and you're done there's no maintenance costs as such and there's no subscription fees 

You also have the option with the new Freesat boxes to sign up to premium content through Netflix and a few other online streamers 

Do the Maths

So if a Freesat box cost you £200 to buy outright and a sky box cost you 15 pound a month for a minimum two-year contract the Freesat box would pay for itself within 18 months. 

Looking at the basic statistics of what is available via freesat for sky entertainment 
90% of what you would want to watch or what most people want is available on Freesat without the need of a subscription. 

So if you're looking to save money it's definitely an option. 

Some Technical Stuff

With the Freesat box you can record up to four channels at the same time so you don't really have to miss the premium TV on a Saturday night you can capture it all and fast forward through the commercials 

So in summary my feeling is if you want to watch premium film and the sport sky is still a very good option of course the same content* is also available through Virgin media if you live in a cable TV area

For most people the service that is provided through Freesat and through Freeview if you don't have a satellite dish is going to be more than enough to entertain you on a cold winter's evening. 

Let sum up

Whether you decide to stick with sky or switch to Freesat we have parts and components spares and repair services that can help your TV viewing stay premium even if you're not paying the premium price to sky.

Freesat Boxes