Sky F1 - New subscribers being fleeced

Correction - existing subscribers will also be fleeced

Not sure it's fleecing: until now, you had to buy the Sky Sports package at £21/mth to get the Sky F1 channel, and that would mean £252 for the whole year on top of the basic package, or £189 if you only took it for the duration of the F1 season.

Now it looks like you're going to be paying £5 a month for the first six months, and then £10.25 for the last three months, of the season – so a total of £60.75 for the F1.

The HD premium is £5/mth for six months, and then £10/mth after that, so the total for F1 if you take the HD option, and subscribe to F1 just for the season, is £120.75.

In that case its alright then, almost a bargain 

eggontoast wrote:

In that case its alright then, almost a bargain 

We'd all like the F1 to be on the BBC in HD for free, just as some members of my family are angry that premiership rugby is only available on pay TV these days.

I was merely pointing out that the cost hasn't gone up from last year, as the thread title suggested, but has actually gone down.

Reading upside down & backwards .... Subscribing to hd and films then f1hd is free. Thats a bargain.

Last year you got the F1 channel if you subscribed to the basic HD package for £21.50 a month

So if you want to watch in HD that's an increase of  £183 this year.

I stand by the use of the word fleeced

How are they being fleeced. Sky sets a price and, if you agree, you pay it. If you don't agree, then you don't pay it. Being fleeced is when you don't want to pay something but have to as you don't have a choice. You could add in that people who don't have a TV licence would have to pay an additional £140. 

Having re-read the Sky site, you do get the F1 channel as part of the HD upgrade/subscription, which costs £5/mth for first six months, then £10.25/mth after that.

So total annual cost of adding F1 (and HD) to a basic Sky package, which is £21.50/mth for the first six months, is £91.50.

But FWIW, if you're on Virgin rather than Sky, you have to pay £25.75/mth extra for a Sky Sports package if you want to see every F1 race, and even then the races aren't in HD

If you dont want to pay Sky's prices then there's always this  (Also worth keeping an eye on Lidls/Aldi/Netto, as they often have similar or DIY kits on offer for less, as do Homebase)

Or you could add a second LNB for 19.2E to your Sky dish with a bit of DIY.

£65 and 30 mins of your time tops for the initial set up = FTA F1 for as long as it remains available FTA in Europe

Point the dish at 19.2E 

Practice 1 (mixture of delayed and live depending on venue, IIRC) and 2 are available on Sport 1 Germany

Delayed practice 3, Qualiyfying and races are available on RTL Germany, Austria and also RTL Switzerland on 13E

Plus obviously the BBCs coverage.

Or the even easier route there's RTL stream http://www.rtl.de/formel1/livestream/index (You'll now need a German based proxy/VPN as they conveniently started geo-blocking soon after the Sky deal was done)

Thanks for the correction Andrew, I'm guessing the red mist was clouding my sums

So change fleeced to lightly trimmed

IME both of our major Pay-TV providers do their best to keep susbcribers as neatly clipped as possible every year

Strewth, do you work at GCHQ?

Never had Sky and never will. I don't know why, how, or what for, but someone in my office reckons they pay over £100pm to Sky (which presumably includes HD, internet, multiroom and all the bells and whistles you can think of) yet you still have to tolerate adverts. What's all that about.

That's about what you'd pay to Virgin for a similar service.

Imagine awakening in a 'real-life' Huis Clos with this pair...