Sky UK Preps Annual Broadband and TV Price Rises for April Fools UPDATE
Customers of UK ISP Sky Broadband and Sky TV should be on the lookout for an announcement about the operator’s latest round of annual price increases next week, which we’ve just been informed will be officially introduced from the 1st April 2019 (same as last year).
On the broadband and phone side of things we generally tend to expect an average rise of around +£1 to +£1.50 per month on the standard rental charge (usually reflecting a rise of c.3-5%), although the exact details won’t be known until next week. Customers of Sky’s TV packages can also expect increases. As usual such price rises may initially be mitigated by discounts for new customers.
Prices tend to rise because operators are adding new services or content, developing new systems and consumers are also gobbling significantly more data every year. Providers are also under pressure to adopt all sorts of new rules, such as having to cater for the automatic compensation system (here) and end-of-contract notification letters (here). Suffice to say that service changes like these cost money and inevitably the customer will end up paying.
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However Ofcom does have a rule against mid-contract price hikes, which means that existing customers are often able to exit their contract penalty free when they hit (you need to do this within 30 days of receiving Sky’s formal notification). Just remember that other major ISPs will also be increasing their prices in the same way.
Alternatively customers could try contacting the operator directly and trying to haggle for a lower price (Retentions – Tips for Cutting Your Broadband Bill). We should have more details next week (the new price list is expected to surface by 19th Feb).
UPDATE 19th Feb 2019
The price changes have been published here.
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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’t leave for TV only unfortunately
Hello I am also in contract with sky tv only is it right that cant get out of contract?
Well wait and see if you get a letter – but we never have we were told it was part of the annual price rise
New subscribers get amazing deals while long term ones get price rises seems very fair.. Not
You were a new customer once therefore you were offered this too so don’t be a hypocrite.
How does that make him a hypocrite?
personally ld always randomly check on their deals, lm only on their Fibre as l dont take out any other services with them but every three months l call them up and get put through to their retentions/value department and see if they can offer me anything better than l have.
today l happened to call them up and managed to get a further £5 knocked off my bill, all in all lm saving £13 on my bill as my last offer which had not run out yet was taking £8.
Well it may be a way out for some of us still in contact with Vodafone Broadband and their currently very poor performing network for some!!!
Are you allowed to exit penalty-free even if they say in your contract that there will be annual RPI increases?
Generally it has to be an increase above inflation and they usually do exceed that.
We tried this in 2016 when they put our bill up by £8 a month – we were not allowed to leave. This time I hope we get a letter as it’s becoming too expensive to watch the same movies month in month out and re runs of junk.
And we can finally ditch the TV licence too –
If you tried it in 2016 then by now your contract should have ended and you can thus already leave without penalty?
Didn’t re contract – but I am sure it’s still the case where you can’t but if people get e-mails or letters and they are only on TV services I will be happy for them but also surprised at the same time
Its funny these individuals that claim they have been with Sky, Virgin and others for years regularly on your news items Mark and claim they can not leave. If only they thought before they posted their obvious nonsense attempts to make a provider look bad.
I used to work for sky up until a few years ago. Early termination fee was £20. But we weren’t allowed to tell the customer that. Sky know that they put themselves in an awkward position giving new customers all the best offers, so @Nick is right. All these price increases will bring breaking point one year when sky will realise they are bleeding customers. They do have great products & services but there’s only so much neglect an existing customer will take too.
Virgin and BT already feeling the heat people ditching phonelines and broadband for 3uk £20 unlimited home broadband they will soon be begging for customers once 5G hit mainstream with the right price.
I have been with sky since 1990 , and I have noticed more and more advertising and for longer in-between programs , I record mostly everything now cause of this , so why do us loyal customer’s keep paying more when they must make a lot from the longer boring advertising they keep pushing on us.
If I remember correctly and I’m happy to be corrected on this, didn’t the government pass a new bill that allowed extra amounts of adverts or longer advert runs a few years ago? This would explain why we are generally seeing more ads. And yes I too record progs and ffd can’t remember the last time I actually watched an advert
@Garry, I would find the ads annoying on Freeview, but at least I’m not paying for it.
On sky, where you’re often paying more than £50 a month, the level of advertising is too high. I’ve also personally come to the conclusion I’ll be ditching Sky once my current term is over. If I’ll be seeing loads of ads, then freeview is good enough. Only 6 months to go.
“@Garry, I would find the ads annoying on Freeview, but at least I’m not paying for it.”
Another TV tax dodger then?
Waits for mass exodus post final series of GOT
If Sky customers will be leaving in their droves who will they be leaving for? Also the Sky box for your recordings is unique & so easy to use. Having your HD TV & BB & Landline all from one provider is so convenient also.
some people have the option of virgin media. Others can use freeview+streaming. As a bundle, Virgin Media offers a very competitive package vs Sky. You get higher broadband speeds and effectively the same channels. Sky I think only edges it on the user experience aspect.
Freesat is Brilliant
Go to TALK TALK LOOK IN TO IT
You can get an hd antenna which allows you to watch hundreds of programs for free and this is not illegal the guys from dragons den put over 2 million into this company and I’ve bought one device but will be change TV packages over to these once sky try to put fees up.Also if you got movies and don’t watch just go down to entertainment package to save money they can’t penalise you as your still with them
Now TV? It’s basically the Sky entertainment packages for £8pm, plus if you absolutely have to get a sports day pass it’s only £6 or something per day.
I would never pay Sky £50pm…That’s for idiots and footballers.
We had a old Sat dish that we ran Freesat on – when Sky came they changed the LLB so when we left it was useless and they wouldn’t revert it back – so had to pay someone to put an old style LNB back on the end of the dish so it worked again
The LNB is the bit that takes the signal of the dish and is the wired up bit – in case you weren’t aware. A smart TV can do most of the apps Sky does – and nowtv is also good for the basic channels.
I genuinely believe SKY are one of the few companies that you actually get a great service for the price , I have TV,box sets, cinema, sports and broadband with them and have no complaints , but yes I record and FF through the ads too
l agree, at least in respects to their Fibre, lve had issues but they have always went above and beyond to resolve them for me. l think they just make it hard to leave for some which can be annoying l guess.
So what’s to stop someone from moving back and fourth from Now Broadband (basically the same service) to keep the New Customer deals?
Go to three uk £22 home broadband ditch sky,bt and virgin all con hit them hard.
I have just ditched Sky because as a VIP of 19 years 8 months (apparently), I was offered via the set box to upgrade to include kids for 50p, so I did. They didn’t mention they went on to cancel my existing package, which is of long standing, I didn’t change my package as it included F1 which for my sins was the main reason for Sky. They replaced my old arrangement with an up to date one which didn’t include F1, to add F1, as a favour from them added a further £11 pm. So cancelled the lot as they would not reinstate. It was an underhand trick, had I conned a customer, in the same way, I would lose my job. So beware…they did try to tell me they provided an explanation on the screen, no they didn’t! I only found out when I received an email the following day at which point I called them, to no effect. I have not put a complaint in but it is a con if everybody cancelled maybe they would get the message.
Sky have become greedy yes to many adverts to many repeats and as for ringing customer services that can be annoying with automated recording
I am appalled at the number of animated films – very rarely are the New films worth watching – they all seem to be on Sky Store !!!
A few years back (2016) it got to the point where I could no longer accept Sky’s continual price hikes, it got to the ridiculous stage. I contact them to cancel thinking I may be able to get a deal, they offered me a few quid off and I argued that I had been with them for 22 years and that’s all they could offer. When I asked them about the great deal’s new customers received, they said that I had already had mine, I asked them when, they said 1994, I am seriously not kidding you. For that smart arse comment I promptly gave them the 1 months’ notice they required and never gave them the opportunity to offer me anything else.
I have now switched to Netflix and NowTV (I know – Sky), and the other free catch up services (with the exception of the BBC which isn’t free because we still have to have the license to use the iPlayer). As a result I have cut my viewing costs enormously.
I also meant to add, once we moved away from Sky we realised just how much of what we viewed is actually on the Freeview channels. We have had to make some adjustments but on the whole we haven’t lost out on much, NowTV in particular fills the gaps at a slip of the cost of the monthly Sky package charges we were paying and no ads too…
Just make sure you are aware that if you use the live TV bits on NowTV you need a licence – otherwise you don’t
I agree with you – in the end 90% of what my wife watches is on freeviww – apart from MTV which we can get on NowTV – anything lese sad to say comes from Torrent to Plex – it’s the only way to get the stuff we watch – for example Supergirl is still on season 3 on Sky – and seems to have paused, yet on Torrents we have just ended season 6 – I kid you not – they are THAT behind!
The great torrent debate will no doubt rise again BUT if they actually kept up would have no issue with paying for it. But they don’t as as someone else said this “new premier everyday”? is bull – they are still premiering the social network for gods sake – that’s a film from 2010!
LIAR again.
The latest aired Supergirl is S04E11 the next episode out in the USA/Canada is S04E12 which airs on Monday the 18th Feb.
Stop LYING with your claims of being a Sky customer, you clearly are not. The latest Episode available on Sky is S04E10 and that is typical for MOST current series for it to be around 1 episode behind.
You need to stop spouting your crap on here.
Pete. Don’t lie, Supergirl is in the middle of season 4 so you ain’t seen anymore than that, I know I too watch the same way you claim to.I just don’t exaggerate facts to fit my rant.
I do not understand why anyone pays for Sky nowadays when you can get NowTV for a fraction of the price.
But when I was with Sky and cancelled. I was expecting the retentions team to try and keep me on my cancellation call but they didn’t and I cancelled. However about two weeks later I got a steady stream of letters through the post offering me half off for a year if I came back. Then after about two months one letter honestly said “you phone us up and tell us the deal to make you come back and we will honour it no matter what it is”.
I recommend people sign up to sky for a year, cancel, use NowTV for a month, sign back up on a “returning” discount and rinse repeat.
Anthony, Virgin media the worst I signed upto 70meg phone line £24 within six months my bills went from £27,£32,£38 no calls made on phone landline anyway cancelled my contract joined the 3 UK unlimited broadband for £22.
So when sky lost most of the prem football and all of the champions league I did not see them drop the price of sky then.
Im sick of all the American rubbish sky are now showing on there sports channels ,we never use to have it,im English living in England and if Americans want American sport give them there own channels and pay for it !!!
Beyond me HOW CAN PEOPLE still pay for sky sports,sky broadband,sky phoneline
I pay 3UK SIM unlimited everything 4G router £12 A month 70mb speeds for sports I use IPTV every prem league games live £99 a year still to many mugs around payign £80+ a month.
Maybe £80 is pocket change to them. Who is the mug now?
Spurple, They really love people like you no wonder why the rich elites get richer I’m glad some people are taking stand to this.
Anyone who gets rich by selling something that people are voluntarily paying for deserves their money as long as they’re paying their due taxes.
If you weigh your cost of entertainment vs other things you could do with the money and the other things win out, good for you. Other people are free to spend their money as they please, and yes for some, the price is not a major consideration.
There’s virtually nothing you spend on that isn’t making someone rich.somewhere.
You can leave a line rental and broadband contract during a price increase period within a window of 31 days from the price change. However a TV contract you can’t, the price of that can increase once every 12month, either in line with inflation or to a maximum of 10%. The average total increase tends to be around 6%
You pay for it don’t always get it yes at a price
Talk talk is shit the neternet gos down all the ti. E and so dose the channels because sky sports and movies are ran through the Internet its just shit
The wording you are using is rubbish. Proffread before posting as some of the sentence is not making any sense. Go back to school and learn to construct a proper sentence. No need for bad language here.
I must say, TalkTalk are the best. I have never had any issues with them. Obviously, I use TalkTalk Business for residential use, which you can use too. Not sure what the residential side of the business is like. This is just my opinion.
@ Language Correction Bot, when you do what you did with proofreading what you wrote it makes you seem a little dense.
Iptv £70 a year on firestick all sky sports movies entertainment channels in HD. bt sports. Saturday 3pm live football games. Sky box office sport events included latest films in cinema etc. Cut the cord ffs
Yeah and no On Demand movies, plus constant buffering. Plus your VPN to pay for and the danger of the service packing up after 5 minutes.
Don;t say that the sky share holders on this site will say your a cheapskate they are worried about losing customers and marketshare about time we hit them hard everyone dump BT,Virgin broadband TV join three uk £22 home broadband and IPTV,
I dumped sky over three years ago for freesat. thats a great service. but ive also axed my streaming services for Cinema HD android app [a side-loaded app, not on the play store] that is ad free & can watch anything i want. With price increases year on year there will be breaking point when too many customers walk away.
another con sky and there price hikes as usual they good at putting the prices up like the ripoff energy companies.