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Sky UK Shifts Sky Cinema Customers to Paramount+ Basic (with ads) Plan

Friday, Jan 17th, 2025 (8:05 am) - Score 32,720
Sky-Glass-TV-Set

Customers of Sky’s TV (Sky Broadband) service, specifically those with their Sky Cinema plan, have been told that their included Paramount+ subscription will be “moved” to the lower value Paramount+ Basic (with ads) plan from 21st January 2025. Some customers will no doubt see this as a downgrade, given that the overall plan price remains the same.

At present, the Sky Cinema plan costs £10 per month on a 24-month term and gives customers access to Sky’s various movie channels, as well as 2 Vue tickets every month and Paramount+ included at no extra cost. But Paramount+ recently introduced a cheaper “with ads” plan (RRP of £4.99 a month) that supports full HD (1080p) streaming on just one device (or 2+ Sky devices) and now with the added annoyance of advertising breaks.

Sky states that customers of the Sky Cinema plan will notice this change on their accounts from 16th February 2025 and that they’re not able to other Paramount+ plans “at the moment“.

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Sky Statement

If you’re already a Paramount+ Customer paying with Sky Marketplace, then adding Sky Cinema onto your TV package, you’ll automatically be moved to the Paramount+ Basic (with ads).

We’ll switch this over for you at the end of your current billing period (we can’t do it sooner and can’t refund you for any time left on your Paramount+ Standard subscription), so you don’t continue paying monthly with Sky Marketplace. You don’t have to do anything, and your login details will stay the same.

Sadly, Sky are just following the current market trend, which has already infected Amazon’s Prime service with ads, as well as Netflix and other streaming platforms. Many pay TV providers have since adopted those cheaper ‘ads’ plans into their bundles.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 .
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24 Responses

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  1. Avatar photo jamie moulding says:

    Would be nice if there was a discounted option to remove the ads plan if already subbed to sky movies

  2. Avatar photo Jonny says:

    Things got dangerously close to “cord cutting” actually working and delivering the promise of subscribing to a streaming platform with everything on for a much lower monthly cost than your old pay TV that came with a bunch of channels you didn’t want, and then each studio wanted their own platform and a larger piece of the pie, and now we’re possibly in a worse position than before.

    1. Avatar photo anonymous says:

      Very predictable though. The streamers hoping to kill of terrestrial broadcasters in hope one of them can get thier grubby hands on archives, and so they can start ramping up pricing. A bit like when Sky took away sports you got for license fee and no additional cost. Now, you pay through the nose for it. After native broadcasters gone, you can then force feed non UK material.

    2. Avatar photo john says:

      Initially streaming was extra money on the side for the studios, now it’s a very significant, if not their main, revenue stream, so it’s not surprising things have changed. However, I must disagree that we’re “possibly in a worse position than before” or anything close to it.

      All of the offerings are pay per month with absolutely no lock-ins. Easy to cancel. So you only need the services that stream the programmes you’re watching this month. So it’s still way cheaper than the old big bundle packages where you had to pay for everything every month.

      We also get new content much faster as the vast majority of content is now released globally at the same time instead of having to wait for Sky or ITV to buy it every season and then find space on the schedule for it. In the same vein we get far more and diverse content that we would never be exposed to before. Can you imagine all these great Korean dramas being available here if not for Netflix? Not a chance.

    3. Avatar photo GreeniusGenius says:

      I agree that we are in a worse position than before. In the age of set top boxes, we had deeply integrated content from all providers, with universal search, a single coherent UI, and no apps that keep signing you in and out. Look at the On Demand interface on Sky+ HD. Arguably, the one on Sky Q is worse, as you have ad infested apps, with data tracking services – like ITV, where as on Sky + HD you could search for and browse content in a standard style menu like the recordings or tv guide menu – no adverts, no nonsense, no account needed – if you were entitled to the content based on your sky subscription, you are automatically in.

      Now we have 20 billion awful web based apps, that randomly sign you out, that don’t integrate with the manufacturers (eg; set top box, smart tv, streaming stick)’s search function so you have to search every app to find content or use google, and no recordings – for when the internet goes out! Also streaming quality is *typically* lower compared to the previous systems.

  3. Avatar photo Aled says:

    The bigger problem for me was that all the major video streaming services started doing this at around the same time (aka when the Hollywood movie strikes started)

    My response was to cancel two streaming services (I hate ads and I only used those services to avoid ads). I won’t accept ads in my TV

    1. Avatar photo binary says:

      Thankfully (and I really do mean that), we have the Beeb.

  4. Avatar photo Daniel Joseph Mccarthy says:

    Still great value though £10 a month. Some great blockbusters 2 cinema tickets worth more than £10..and paramount plus. Utter bargain. Feels almost free.

    1. Avatar photo Beefy McGee says:

      It’s not great value though, you would have to be a mug to subscribe to Sky Cinema

    2. Avatar photo Webber says:

      I don’t think a reduced service for the same price is good value

  5. Avatar photo Andrew says:

    Funny enough, no adverts on the torrent sites

  6. Avatar photo Nathan Lloyd says:

    I’m so glad I got all my stuff archived on a NAS running plex.no adverts or streaming costs for me apart from internet connection.

    1. Avatar photo Anon says:

      Well apart from electricity costs to run your NAS at home, plus the upfront hardware costs to buy it in the first place and maintain it should something fail (HDD for example)

  7. Avatar photo Pete says:

    As paramount plus generally shares its movies with sky anyhow along with just rubbish re runs of ch5 programmes or Mtv series it’s just literally the worst streaming service

    1. Avatar photo Alex Atkin says:

      Paramount+ UK is a joke. The US service has the complete CSI collection, last I checked the UK service had a couple of series, nothing of value.

      It boggles my mind when streaming services but odd series up on the service. If I can’t watch the show start to finish, why even bother?

  8. Avatar photo Rik says:

    What does this mean to those of us on Sky Q plans? I notice the article mentions “Sky Marketplace”. I have never heard this term before.

    1. Avatar photo Webber says:

      Yes, I hadn’t heard of it either so I googled it and it says “Sky Marketplace is a service that allows Sky customers to subscribe to apps on Sky Q, Sky Glass, and Sky Stream”

  9. Avatar photo Dan says:

    I expect that this is Paramount making the change, not Sky. As a content aggregator and distribution platform, Sky can only offer what Paramount and other content owners allow them to under the terms of their contracts.

  10. Avatar photo Peter meaney says:

    Pretty petty/ tight on sky’s behalf especially if same price. I pay nearly 80 pounds a month that’s without sports or paying to get subtitles away thinks that should be enough for everything sky offers especially loyal customers for years don’t think I’m going to be with them for much longer. Broadband alot cheaper also most days I don’t get a signal on my sky 5g contract phone how convenient that 5g ain’t even in my area but was told it was before I took contract all disgusting behaviour from a large worldwide company.

    1. Avatar photo Anonymous says:

      Sky don’t actually operate their own mobile network, it runs on o2s network so if you’re having issues with service, its likely not Skys fault.

      For £80/month you really need to consider leaving and what services you use. Plenty of alt-nets, Openreach-carried services or Virgin Media available for much less, although most (other than Virgin and EE) don’t really offer a TV service.

  11. Avatar photo Biddy says:

    Looks like its time to get all aboard mateys…..arrrgghh! Ahoy! Avast ye!

    Yo, ho, all together, hoist the colours high!

    Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die!

    1. Avatar photo Daveisdead says:

      The entertainment industry seemingly didn’t learn from Limewire/Napster in the early days that led us to Spotify et al. All this is going to do is push everyone stright onto the high seas. They offer a compelling offering giving consumers exactly what they’re screaming for – eveything in one place for a single fee. At the same time offering a unified interface with search capabilities across absolutely everything. But nope, lets double dip and give a shitty serive instead, has to be a winner…

  12. Avatar photo piotr says:

    Ive already moved to 4K plan (by taking a new subscription) . it was pretty easy to understand that Sk cant pay for better plan, give people two tickets and still pay to Sony, Warner and few others for first tv rights they hold…

  13. Avatar photo Jon says:

    When Virgin Media made the change from inclusive-Netflix-standard to the ad-supported tier, it only affected re-contracting customers after the pertinent date. If you already had inclusive standard tier, you kept it until making a change or re-contracting.

    This sounds like Sky refused to honour existing plans either.

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