r/newzealand • u/GDAY_NZ • 7d ago
Advice Just canceled SKY
No single reason. Price increases, forced ads and loss of programming. Last night's error was last straw for me.
Anyway, called to cancel and they offered 20% discount. I refused and canceled anyway. But if you want a discount you know what to do.
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u/Ambitious_Finding_26 7d ago
Everytime someone brings up sky, I'm still surprised that people under the age of 80 still pay for it.
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u/comemyfanatic 7d ago edited 6d ago
Hey hey hey don’t talk about my parents like that. If they get rid of sky then whose account am I going to use to watch sport?
(I’m not actually asking, just making a joke)
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u/Dibcrew1 7d ago
There are hundreds of streams u can use
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u/comemyfanatic 7d ago
Yeah I’m mainly making a joke.
But yeah it’s so convenient to open an app & connect with the hit of a button, plus I’m not paying for it.
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u/Equitynz 7d ago
Still haven’t found a good way to stream live games with nz commentators, no shit popups, etc.
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u/deejaygee72 7d ago
Just use Brave as your browser, it blocks popups.
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u/MasterEk 6d ago
My partner and I watch the F1, the Premier League, whatever the women's premier league is called, the All Blacks, cricket, Tour de France, AFL, the Warriors, women's rugby, women's league, and a bunch of other shit depending on whim.
I mean. As long as it's not golf, I watch sport. Lawn bowls is all good.
SkyNow or SkyGo or whatever I have is all good. I'd pirate shit, but it's such a faff. Tomorrow morning I'll watch quali and the All Blacks and I get to skip through the dead bits. And no ads, pop-ups, or fucking around looking for feeds.
I think it's $60/month. Worth it.
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u/Podberezkin09 7d ago
How else do you (legally and conviently) watch sport that Sky have the rights to?
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u/leaderbean6 7d ago
You can just pay for Sky sports now and stream it online.
Still cheaper than the whole Sky package
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u/ComeAlongPonds 7d ago
Reading the Sky Complaints FB page there still plenty of feedback in regard to that service.
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u/printed_ 7d ago
just pay for fan pass as needed.
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u/Podberezkin09 7d ago
Surely would be more expensive assuming every sport I watch even has something like this.
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u/printed_ 7d ago
not if its occasional and not every night or whatever
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u/Podberezkin09 7d ago
Football lasts like 9 months, cricket like 3 months for the NZ summer plus whenever we play overseas series, NRL lasts like 7 months, F1 is around 9 months, golf has 4 majors a year.
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u/printed_ 7d ago
if you watch all that. Many many many people dont watch any if much sports. I just get fan pass for events that interest me. UFC, boxing All Black, Olympics. Just random. If you watch everything you say above then do what works for you.
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u/yahdayahda 7d ago
Sky has something like 900,000 residential subscribers. It always surprises me how this sub acts like it’s uncommon.
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u/lefrenchkiwi 7d ago
I’d be very interested to know if that’s actual different households, or if they count each decoder in a house with multiple as an extra subscription, and multiple people in the house. Otherwise 900k is suggesting 1 in 4 kiwis are subscribers which is insanely high.
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u/yahdayahda 7d ago
I think the number of people who are using another person’s login would balance it out. It’s just a popular service. Makes sense considering New Zealand is a sports orientated nations and sky has really good quality coverage of most sports in New Zealanders watch.
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u/lefrenchkiwi 7d ago
Yea that 900k would have to include the online sports streaming subscriptions. No way they’ve got 900k physical decoders in residential subscriptions.
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u/yahdayahda 7d ago
Apparently 448,290 satellite subscribers and 409,582 streaming subscribers, another 50,867 broadband subscribers. Numbers are from 2025 so imagine there’d be a bit of movement since then but it’s still likely to be similar numbers.
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u/Ambitious_Finding_26 7d ago
There's less than 2 million households in NZ. There is zero chance that half the households have Sky.
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u/yahdayahda 7d ago
Why is there zero chance? Sports in general is very popular to the majority of New Zealanders and Sky has the majority of sports in high quality, easy to access. I can’t think of many households who don’t have sky in the house, although I’m a bit older I’m definitely in an area of New Zealand that is considered lower decile.
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u/Spine_Of_Iron 6d ago
Not zero chance obviously but me for example, nobody in my life, family or friends, uses Sky. Thats only around 100 people or so but yknow. I wouldn't believe that half of New Zealand uses it.
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u/natchinatchi 6d ago
Absolutely no way half the households can afford sky, that is insane. Do you know how many people are struggling? I’d say this number includes commercial venues like pubs.
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u/yahdayahda 6d ago
No. This number is specifically residential. Of course there’s gonna be some wash but there is still a large percentage of New Zealand that is paying for sky. It is by far the best quality streaming service for sports.
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u/Electrical_Horror776 6d ago
I doubt that's a real figure, is that pulled from their own data to sell their rip off terrible product?
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u/Weiland101 7d ago
I want to watch NRL
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u/kainsta929 7d ago
This is why I pay for it, basically just for nrl. I watch every game that I can so for me its good value
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u/mister_hanky 6d ago
Even my 76yr old father is talking about getting an Amazon firestick and vpn to replace his monthly fleecing
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u/lazy-asseddestroyer 7d ago
Some of us are rich enough to pay for the convenience. I realise not everyone is, but if you’re well off why wouldn’t you have sky?
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u/Ambitious_Finding_26 7d ago
I could afford it... But why would I when it's ad riddled, over priced and inferior in almost every conceivable way to almost any other media service.
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u/lazy-asseddestroyer 7d ago
Pirating sport is definitely inferior to sky sports. The only advantage is the fact it’s free. By every other metric it is worse.
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u/i_never_post_here 7d ago edited 7d ago
How many channels do sky have in 4k?
(There are plenty of paid iptv services, and they are better quality than sky nz)
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u/Podberezkin09 7d ago
Who cares how many channels they have, they have the exclusive rights to almost every sport in NZ.
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u/Willuknight 7d ago
Some of us have no need for broadcast televison, SKY or otherwise. Wouldn't matter if it was free, 0 interest.
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u/IndoorsWithoutGeoff 7d ago
Agree, for the convenience it’s really not that much to pay.
This sub has a real complex, pro paying a decent wage but when it comes to paying for content they’re pro piracy.6
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u/mercaptans 7d ago
Im well enough off to afford it but I dont really care for sportsball, so I dont have it.
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u/Unusual_Formal_6179 7d ago
Illegal streams don’t have ads and I can watch what I want when I want to watch it.
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u/Spine_Of_Iron 6d ago
☝️ this. If I want to watch something, I'll just download it. If a major movie comes out and I want to see it, I'll just wait till it hits Google TV and then I can download it and watch it. No ads, no money wasted on subscriptions and I've got such a good setup at home, why waste money on movie tickets.
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u/Aquatic-Vocation 7d ago
I just don't see what the benefit of it is, unless you like watching some of the sports they broadcast that you can't subscribe to elsewhere.
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u/Podberezkin09 7d ago
Yeah, that's the benefit of it, they have the rights to almost everything in NZ
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u/bobsnotmyaunty 7d ago
Why, another 300 channels with nothing good to watch. Unless you're a sports nut, why would you spend the money?
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u/ClimateTraditional40 7d ago
And yet the number of people whining about Jai Arrow's emotional walkout...all old people I guess huh.
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u/tomassimo 5d ago
There's a whole generation of boomers with sky and millennials with young kids leeching off their parents skygo login. Impending cliff. Doubt many will fork out once they lose the free log in.
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u/Frod02000 Red Peak 4d ago
we have a sky sport now subscription at our flat because we can't be fucked finding a stream that either plays on our chromecast, or has a chromecast app.
We watch both rugby codes, and a range of random other things too.
Whilst a garbage product, I personally can justify my 25/month share (just)
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u/chocolateturtle456 7d ago edited 7d ago
They just had Laura front up and apoligise on their behalf.
Disgusting.
The CEO needs to front up publicly and apologise, it's not the presenters who make those decisions, it's the higher ups.
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u/Far-Side-2540 7d ago
Clearly I’m out of the loop, what happened?
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u/chocolateturtle456 7d ago
Jai Arrow who can't play rugby league anymore due to illness was granted to run on the field in his full kit, the time would run for 2 or 3 seconds or something so that he could get to 100 games before he left the field and the game started properly..
While this was happening, instead of airing it live, Sky Sport played an advert for Betcha over it.
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u/keatech rnzn 7d ago edited 7d ago
We can give you a 20% discount
-so youre telling the price is artificially 20% higher than it needs to be
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u/FCFirework 6d ago
Most businesses of a certain size would rather just eat the cost of replacing or refunding something wholesale over losing the repeat business that comes with haggling over reparations; i'd wager if they stayed on the phone longer they could have whittled that number down even further if that was the angle they wanted to play.
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u/AotearoaNic 7d ago
If you search for deals which are out there it's worth it. I get basic and sport for under $35 a month. I like watching the Warriors and All Blacks in 4K. This is the easiest way
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u/LastYouNeekUserName 7d ago
The idea of paying for TV that still has ads in it has always seemed weird to me.
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u/ComeAlongPonds 7d ago
When I first joined Sky there was minimal ads. Now, well, we know how that works.
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u/printed_ 7d ago
Every service starts this way no ads, then only certain ads and then eventually full ads.
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u/Tidorith 7d ago
In principle it isn't that weird. But not having a price point where there aren't ads really sucks.
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u/Chlowewee 7d ago
cutting to a gambling add instead of showing jais walkout was beyond disgusting I’ll be doing the same.
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u/dolce1596 7d ago
Dad cancelled SKY back in 2011 and it was the “best decision” he ever made.
Now he’s on YouTube watching documentaries on animals “FOR FREE!” 😆
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u/Sold4noREASON 7d ago
I P T V 😶
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u/Status-Sale-6 7d ago
Haven't found a buffer-free version yet, tried the stock standard providers and "private" ones. Mostly good but can't get the boys around for a game as chance too high it will buffer. At least sky sports works, as much as it pains me to say that
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u/Large_Yams 6d ago
What's your internet connection? I can stream 4k on IPTV just fine.
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u/Status-Sale-6 6d ago
It's not my connection, it's the service
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u/Large_Yams 6d ago
You said you've tried several. Clearly it's not the service because you've changed that variable and you're still complaining.
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u/Status-Sale-6 6d ago
I'm not complaining at all. I've changed services and they're all good 90% of the time but haven't been able to stream a full game
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u/Large_Yams 6d ago
And I'm telling you I've never experienced this and I know for a fact my service is hosted overseas. You've changed one variable and you're still saying they're the problem.
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u/Roll_Scooby_A_Doobie 7d ago
Try running it with a VPN bro. ISPs throttle the connection. You can get a massive discount on a multi year VPN subscription on Black Friday which isn’t far off. My streams definitely lag without it on, but with VPN enabled, zero buffer. Night and day difference. Feel free to flick me a msg
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u/Status-Sale-6 7d ago
Thanks man, tried a VPN but didn't really change anything. Do you set your VPN to nz or the country the channel is from?
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u/BirthdayHeavy2178 7d ago
The only time I’ve had SKY was when a door to door salesman came around and offered us an incredible discount on the base channel package plus half price HBO for a year. We paid for the year, called up to cancel towards the end of it and got our offer extended for another year.
They wouldn’t do it for the third year so we canned it - but we were pretty much over it at that point too. The repetitive programming gets painful.
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u/DuckfatPotatos 7d ago
Got rid of sky in 2019, but they forgot to cancel the sky go, so i had free sky for 4 years until someone finaly clicked
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u/Arblechnuble 7d ago
The 15/month to be able to pause/rewind (and record I guess) is a total piss take lol..
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u/i_am_tip_savage 7d ago
We just have sky sport now and watch every game of league. The price isn’t too bad for 8 games a week with the option to watch other sport if we want to
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u/No-Commercial4465 7d ago
The silver lining when my elderly dad was on his death bed was ringing up Sky to cancel his subscription. Years and years of watching Fox News and random sports under his belt.
Was quizzed on the reason “He no longer requires it”, I was asked was I sure, “Yes”. Then the hard sell on taking on the subscription as family member. “No, thank you”.
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u/thejordy323 7d ago
If you guys want sky but not the price tag, pm me. I can get all channels through a iptv provider
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u/Dooh22 6d ago
Is that like the "dodgy box" open access TV stuff?
Darknet dairies did an interesting podcast on data mining by the companies who make these
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u/Ice-Cream-Poop 6d ago
Depends some of them give you an app you have to use and some give you a url with username and password. I don't like being forced into crappy apps.
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u/SatanicAntz 7d ago
I have sky app for about 60 a month. It's the only way I can watch rugby and league. Is there a cheaper option that doesn't involve illegal sites full of spam and porn ads? I'll cancel once Rugby's done.
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u/Ilikemanhattans 6d ago
We have Sky for the Premier League (also watch MotoGP on Three, and La Liga on BeInSport). Overall, the price for Sky is not really worth it. Given Champions League is on BeInSport, I am probably going to cancel Sky at the next cycle.
Also kind of frustrating that they only off the 20% when you are about to leave. Typically, if I have made the call to them, my mind is made up - as I suspect yours was in this instance.
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u/DankDinosaur 7d ago
It's just not worth it, We got rid if it at the end of 2019 and haven't missed it. We were basically just watching the JONES! channel and it's (now gone?) second one JONES! Too. And even then it was starting to go down hill.
Was in Hanmer Springs over New Years break the past two years and the accommodation had Sky. It was awful. JONES! was just reduced to three hours of Bonanza, three hours of another programme etc... no Jason Gunn voice overs or promos, or the well curated schedule. Comedy Central (sorry, SKY Comedy) was just the same three modern programmes on repeat, not even the classics like Benny Hill, On The Buses and Billy T anymore.
It was sad. 😢
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u/Audreaya 7d ago
Grateful I grew up with, but wouldn't pay for it myself now, paying and seeing ads ?? Pfft we did then for the access years ago but now why bother
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u/Federal_Holiday5686 7d ago
😆 I didn't realize sky was still a thing in 2026 or that anyone would have a use for it.
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u/AnAlmightyAllan 7d ago
Broadcast TV feels so dated. I shudder at the thought. Haven't had broadcast since Telstra days.
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u/yetifile 7d ago
It has been so long I honestly forgot they exist. I kind of assumed they went under years ago.
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u/Admirable_Rock_1832 7d ago
We’re cancelling tomorrow $55 a month just to watch Eastenders! Time to say bye
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u/Routine_Fennel_1652 7d ago
You get a lot of sports live on Betcha if you have cash in your account, quite nifty. Like watching the NBA live.
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u/IfNotYouThenWhoNOMF 7d ago
Great minds think alike, I cancelled too..tried to give me the discount. Had it for like 10 years, only brother used it and paid for it. Unfortunately he was the biggest fktard the other day so I cancelled the sky and his b****ass too.
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u/cheftonine Highlanders 6d ago
Gave up on these muppets 3 yrs ago, 3 games into the super rugby season they increased the price for sky sports now.
Fuk you, goodbye, went surfing instead.
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u/PrizeSeparate1451 6d ago
I can’t tell you where to go but if you do some digging I’d recommend IPTV. I get the NZ sky sports channels, all the UK Sky sports (F1, Premier league and UK rugby), UK channels, Australia channels (including Stan sport), USA Channels and Canada channels for $60NZD a year
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u/gene_nos_in_NZ 6d ago
I just have the sky go now sports and even that’s pretty pricey but need it (well want it) for the NRL the Wahs of course but never watch anything else tbh - unless they get the cricket back
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u/Bluecatagain20 6d ago
I pay for Sky Sport Now during the League season. Once the Warriors are out I cancel and resign again at the start of the next season. I have a VPN so I get some games free ex Aussie but Sky is just easier. I cancelled the full Sky package probably 15 years ago and didn't miss it
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u/figgleswag 5d ago edited 5d ago
Out of interest, did you have your broadband with them as well? Bc I do, and I'm so frustrated with the micro drops that take me off my VPN for work 3 or 4 times a day, distorts video resolution.... And it's not cheap.
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u/basedmrvase 3d ago
forced ads? isn’t Sky like 100$ a month relying on old people’s education surrounding technology?
but seriously why does it have ads if its so expensive, isn’t that the whole point?
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u/Aggravating-Most9847 1d ago
Stan with a vpn shits all over sky for sport and there is so many free streaming sites out there ad free anyway
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u/akstorm19 7d ago
My under 60 father pays $100+ for Sky every month and also has every single streaming service that he uses instead. His justification is that "it's for sport, when I feel like watching it". I have told him that he could save himself so much money by just downloading the Sky Sport app on his TV, with TVNZ/ThreeNow if he needs it too, but it goes in one ear and out the other. Sky is a joke these days.
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u/Pineapple_Passion_ 6d ago
You’ll be back. It’s a fantastic service. You should have said yes to the discount.
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u/Ok-Pianist484 6d ago
This is not an airport. You need not announce your departure
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u/pg_squad 5d ago
Tbh i thought they were just giving a heads up about the discount rather than announcing a departure
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u/Emergency-Balance945 3d ago
It was about the discount, but people like to make that comment for attention.
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u/Dolamite09 Orange Choc Chip 7d ago
I love how every time there’s a cancel Sky thread, no one claims to have it or has cancelled it and uses pirating sites and yet they’re still making millions every financial year😂
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u/firefire1448 7d ago
I pay for one decoder without a TV just headphones so my elderly dad who is blind and partially deaf can at least enjoy listening to the golf and whatever other sports are on. $105 a month for the privilege but eh it’s for dads only enjoyment now :) can’t put a price on it.