Sky UK Launches New Essentials TV Package for £15 Monthly
Sky (Sky Broadband, Sky Mobile etc.) has today announced the launch of their new entry-level Essential TV package, which includes some premium channels and also brings those together with Netflix and discovery+ content from just £15 per month. This is available via their internet-based Sky Stream and Sky Glass platforms.
Just to be clear, the new Essential TV package includes Sky Atlantic, Netflix Standard with Ads and discovery+, as well as 100 free to air channels like BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky News and Sky Arts. The package costs £15 per month on a 24-month term or £18 a month via a 31-day rolling contract for new subscribers. Customers can purchase Sky Glass with either pack, starting from £14 a month for a 48-month contract.
Ben Case, Managing Director Sky TV, said, “We’re excited to share our world-class TV experience with even more people, at an everyday low price with Sky Essential TV. Our new TV pack makes it easier than ever to get the biggest and best shows from Sky, Netflix and discovery+ all in one place, just in time for the Christmas TV season.”
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Can you buy additional Stream devices and use the same login details across multiple TVs in the same house?
Sky don’t sell the Stream boxes, they loan them to you. But yes you can add the wholehome addon for £13 per month.
To add to what @Jack says, you only get one extra box included for ‘free’, you need to pay ~£40 for additional boxes.
I don’t think I will get excited about it, £15 for maybe 3-4 channels that are interesting. Then the TV licence on top. I will stay as I am.
Looks like a price designed to target customers who would otherwise have to get an aerial installed to watch TV and then giving them the very easy option to subscribe to more Sky channels once the box is there. Possibly intended to compete with Freely as well in the “don’t have an aerial, landlord won’t install one” market.
We were no longer prepared to play Sky’s end-of-contract games so we left 4 months ago. We have swapped an £80+ monthly contract to a monthly streaming cost of less than £10 per month. I wish that we had done it years ago.
What a load of ……….
£15 for Sky Atlantic, £5 Netflix option and £6 Discovery Plus.
Nope.
What’s the catch and the small prints
its £15 for sky atlantic netflix and discovery plus included
Netflix with ads and Discovery plus are £5 each.
On top of that you are getting free to air channels that Virgin themselves are selling for £5 a month on their flex device.
With Sky you get all this lumped together as a single package and you can use it with any broadband provider aslong as you have the minimum download broadband speed.
Looks like a bit of NowTV replacement to me
i doubt it, Now TV will work on multiple devices and is skyway to make money in the streaming market.
Don’t need a Tv licence for now TV, unless you watch live stuff, whihc could make a difference to some people.
Now TV is more of alternative to Neflix and disney+, something people can dip in without a contract when they want to.
I used to have Now TV years ago with their hardware, still have the box somewhere, I doubt I would subscribe again
To me this is Sky trying to compete with Freely. Once Freely has a widely available app I think Sky’s days are numbered in its current iteration.
Nah, they are just trying to get more customers, putting a basic package is one way of doing it. They may get the people who don’t want the full package and think that paying £20 or more a month is too much.
Freely will be free apart from the price of broadband.
15 pounds for a few so called premium channels,no sport or movies .hence why I left sky ,way to expensive
I’ve been with Sky since it’s beginning and feel I’m being punished. I’m paying £70 a month for what others can get for less than half when they stream Sky glass , I can’t do that I’m 72 years young and still using Sky Q. As soon as contract is finished then so am I with Sky. Your treating long loyal customers like fools instead of looking after them.
I can understand you not wanting to get Sky glass, have you got a decent broadband, if so can you not get in tough with sky and ask them what they can do for with Sky Stream?
You could at the end of your contract, give them a call anyway and they may give you an offer, not sure what your £70 a month is paying for, but it must be good if you keep paying that amount, maybe they will take a few quid off for you,
Myself, I would never pay that much a month for TV,
My parents are paying £25 for SkyQ. Sky take customers for a ride unless they call and argue/threaten to leave now. I suggest you call up and threaten to leafe.
Do you think this will work abroad connected to a GL.inet router connected to my Tailscale network with my home broadband as an exit node?
So freeview with a little extra.
How about sorting out so people that want only sports can pay just for that not be forced to take all the other channels adding extra cost they dont want.
I just dont understand why people continue to pay for sky tv.
Stream isn’t fit for purpose, audio dropouts, video pixelation, horrible OS that’s buggy and slow.
There’s 45 page threads over on the sky forums of people complaining, I had to reach deadlock with sky and then go to CIAS who found in my favour.
A full refund and cancellation with no penalty which if you are on a 12 month or longer contract and give 30 days notice you are legally allowed to do anyway but I digress.
It’s a good idea but terribly executed , the cheap, rubbish stream puck doesn’t help.
It looks very much like a loss leader to get people to subscribe to the higher priced package. also if and when Sky lose the HBO content Sky Atlantic will look crap.
I’m surprised at the negative views on this.
£15 with included Netflix and discovery isn’t a bad price for any sky service.
LOL, “a good price” – What if you aren’t interested in limited Netflix UK package or Discovery?
I have just cancelled my Sky package and taken the Sky essential pack which I can keep my Q box and dish to use as a free view box and to use for streaming channels for only £10 a month I only found out about this when cancelling.I was intending to purchase a Free view box for around £200 so I think this was a fair deal