Why charge extra for Sky Go Extra?

This is very similar to when Sky used to charge £10/month extra for Sky+ (to record programmes to the Sky box’s hard disk). Sky falsely claimed it was a service, yet the only service is the channels which are paid for separately and the ability to record is not a service but functionality within the Sky box which is already owned by the consumer.

Sky charges me £2.50 per month for not having their tv! While their broadband and evening/weekend phone call package have been trouble free, I’m just about to migrate to PlusNet. I called Sky recently and asked them to take off the £2.50 charge, but they refused, so I’m voting with my feet.

I voted with my feet and dumped Sky about a year ago because of their pricing structure. I have no regrets, I just get irritated with all the junk mail from Sky trying to get me to re-subscribe.

SKy contacted me with research on Sky Go and one of the questions was about the £5. I said I was not prepared to pay for it and I am sure I was not alone in this. I already pay for the content so why should i pay twice for it? I travel a lot so will be sticking with the FREE BBC iPlayer for my travelling consumption. I suggest others do the same.

Sky need to think about this hard as i see Sky Go as added value to keep me with Sky. Virgin seem to be ahead of the game against Sky now and this short term revenue generator may have a longer term revenue impact for Sky.

Sky – we are watching you, don’t take your customers for granted!

This is so typical of Sky – fleece the customer! I left Sky after having endured 2 hours of nonsense and hard sell from them. I would like to see see Which? campaign for the right to cancel on line. Sky do not understand that customer convenience should come first.

Hi this latest attempt by Sky to get more money from us for an already ridiculously expensive service is just typical of the greed of large companies.
I will be seriously looking at alternatives now after being a loyal Sky customer from its inception.
This is just another example of their quest to extract even more money from their customers.
I urge everyone to look at alternative services and eventually, maybe, Sky will come to value their business.
Unhappy subscriber

I agree with all the comments about Sky’s greed in charging extra for this non-service. Anyone seriously considering this might think about putting SkyGo on a laptop or PC and adding a programme like Audials One v10 (£40 today) that lets you copy content off the screen plus sound to whatever format you like. It works well as long as you have a fast enough connection for streaming. That way you have a one off charge instead of a never ending drain and can keep programmes as long as you like. I’ve used Audials for several years and have no financial connection to the company! The other thing I detest about SkyGo is that it doesn’t allow you to connect an Ipad via an HDMI lead to a TV to get a decent sized picture. The Iplayers apps do, no problem, but I can’t with SkyGo despite having paid my subscription.

The bottom line here is simple :

People have increasingly been using laptops in place of a second Sky box. Sky can’t prevent laptops from outputting to hdmi (they can with iOS and some Android builds) so who in their right mind is going to pay Sky £10.25 for multiroom?

So Sky decide to both restrict the content that was available on Sky Go (stuff that was free to watch last year now costs money to watch) and also prevent laptops downloading. Unless of course you pay the £5 for Sky Go “Extra”.

Sky can spin it any way they want but this is all about multiroom subs declining. Nothing else.

Excellent article. I just want to highlight one point touched on by other commenters. This is not a new service at all, my monthly package has allowed me to watch downloaded films for many years.

All Sky have done is switched clients from PC/Mac to Android/iOS. So to get almost exactly the same service as I got two weeks ago, I need to spend another £5 a month.

Agree with the premise of the article. Just missed one thing – Sky claims that the increase is due to the extra costs of rights for downloading stuff. Whilst there may be a charge for this, Sky aren’t making this move to ‘cover costs’, as they acknowledge in their recent financial results.

I think the article should acknowledge this reasoning of Sky’s and blow it out of the water.

Its about getting more money out of their existing customers. And they seem to want to do this without providing anything significantly extra for them.

The Sky Go Extra package isn’t providing a new service – it’s replacing the free downloads that were previously available, with a £5 subscription download service.

If Sky Go Extra provided a download facility that was not previously available, your article discussion would be accurate. As it is, a previously free service is being made chargeable.

Agree with most of what is said above, especially about charging for something that used be free. Downloading is not a big deal for me (I can use BBC for most of what I need in that space) but being able to play on more than two devices is the restriction that really annoys me. However, £5 a month is too much to pay for the privilege of adding another two. I fully understand that it would be an issue if I could play on an unlimited number of devices simultaneously (then my neighbours, friends etc could watch sky without a subscription) but I don’t understand why the system cannot check how many SkyGo Players are logged in at once and just limit that to two. 3D also hacks me off. I can only get that if I pay for movies and sports which I don’t need.
I see the point about getting multi-room for free – but you don’t get the full range of channels. They should certainly make it free with a multi-room subscription.

No… as much as I like the idea of downloading Sky programmes onto my iPad I think it’s outrageous that Sky is charging £5 extra a month. We already pay £68 per month for the full package, to charge extra for content we are already entitled to is appalling. In fact, it has annoyed me so much that we decided to put Netflix to the test and are so pleased with it we have downgraded our Sky package. I admit this was a reaction to Sky charging extra for downloading, but it has made me happy to pay them a little less per month as I feel they monopolise the market.

Another thing that annoys me is that I have Sky News on my iPhone and iPad, so my husband can’t have it on his iPad….2 devices is just not enough..irritating!!

When we called to downgrade the message said there was a minimum 30-40 minute wait…so cunning husband redialled and chose the “want to add to my package” option…the call was answered within 4 minutes…funny that ……..Sky…I’m afraid you’re getting a bit big for your boots…the worms are turning…

I think sky have made a greedy mistake in adding £5 to watch sky go especially as I have had it free of charge for years it gets my back up when I see how much more greedy they have become.
I hope other companies will gain from this move. They are still the only company to charge for HD. Come on TALKTALK!!!!!!!!!!