Has Sky beaten streaming at its own game?

Cast your mind back roughly ten years, and you'll remember a very different era of streaming.

The modest monthly subscriptions and cancel-anytime promise made these risk-free alternatives to traditional cable and satellite packages, which came with pricey contracts that locked you in for months, and in many cases, years.

There were no ads, and you didn't need a satellite dish either; just a vast library of things to watch via an internet connection.

However, those days are over. The current streaming landscape is fraught with subscription tiers that lock high-quality, ad-free watching behind paywalls, and the number of services is, frankly, out of control.

If you're anything like me, your bank statement likely has, or at one point had, withdrawals from Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney and more, all because there have been various shows or movie franchises that I've been watching concurrently.

While I yearn for the simpler and streamlined days when everything was in one place, with one bill, I know we can never go back. So who will save us from the muddled, increasingly expensive world of modern streaming? Ironically, I think it's Sky...

Everything in one place...

Sky's angle for beating streaming confusion is to have everything in one, organised place – that being its Ultimate TV package.

That includes Sky's original channels (including Sky One and Sky Atlantic) and 130 additional ones, as well as Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Discovery+ and Hayu (the last of which is being added in July), all for £24 per month. You also get the What Hi-Fi? Award-winning Sky Stream puck as part of this package, too.

While these are the ad-supported versions (I'll touch on that later), some simple calculations show that this is still a pretty great deal.

Now (formerly Now TV) offers up the core Sky channels without needing a Sky subscription, and that costs £9.99 per month for the Entertainment package with HBO Max included. A Netflix Standard with Ads subscription is £5.99 per month, Disney+ Standard with Ads is also £5.99 per month, Discovery+ is £3.99 per month, and Hayu is another £5.99.

Totting that all up, we get to £31.95 per month, which means you get a pretty respectable saving of around £8 per month, or around £192 over the minimum subscription length. There is also the option to upgrade these services individually if you do want the better picture quality and are tired of adverts.

What's better is that this all comes out in one big subscription, meaning you don't have to keep track of when you renewed or joined a service.

Now, there is the caveat that you are locked into a 24-month minimum term contract, so you forgo the option of cancelling a service if you find that you're not using it. Sky is also up front in saying that subscription prices may rise over the contract length, which is something to be mindful of.

While that can be slightly daunting for those who value the flexibility of the streaming model, I have to admit that I've been subscribed to the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV for years, and don't see myself ending my streaming subscriptions any time soon.

In fact, using Sky Stream has made me dig even deeper into the services I was paying for, thanks to the handy Sky OS software. It's a dab hand at suggesting content that I'd actually like, and being able to play it directly from the home screen without having to track down which service it's on is, quite frankly, a time-saving marvel.

A couple of missing pieces...

While Sky Ultimate TV has been a mostly superb antidote to the streaming frustrations I've faced, there are a couple of omissions. There are still a couple of services that aren't bundled into this package, those being Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.

I'm subscribed to both, the former for the upcoming final season of The Boys, and the latter for the likes of Shrinking, Slow Horses and Your Friends and Neighbours, and while it's not the end of the world that I have a couple of free spirited streaming apps to keep track of, it would be nice if they were all neatly tucked into the bundle. That would, of course, bring the price up.

Secondly, as I've previously mentioned, these are the ad-supported tiers of the respective services. This means you have to live with fairly frequent adverts, and give up on a few premium experiences, including UHD streaming and Dolby Atmos.

As frustrating as that is, this is a trend that's been plaguing streaming services for years now, and you have to make the plunge into higher monthly costs if you want the improved picture quality, better sound and ad-free watching on almost all of the services mentioned above.

The perfect alternative?

So, is Sky the perfect answer to the convoluted and expensive world of streaming that we live in? Not entirely, but it's pretty darn close.

I've found myself using my streaming services much more often, and watching hidden gems I didn't even know existed, thanks to Sky OS's platform-agnostic suggestions, and being able to manage almost all of my services in one place makes things much easier and smoother.

While the lengthy contract can be slightly off-putting for those who like to mix and match their services each month, it does sort of prove my point about streaming services coming full circle. The easiest way to access and keep track of these services is by using the very package it sought to challenge.

Overall, I prefer the convenience of Sky's Ultimate TV package over wrangling a long list of subscription services that renew on different days each month, and if you're already shelling out for multiple services each month (and don't plan on dropping any in the immediate future), then Sky's Ultimate TV package is genuinely worth a look.

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