SKY’s the limit
It will come as no surprise to readers of Crucket, given the near total absence of any description of physical cricket here, that I do not watch a lot of live cricket. I catch a bit here and there – at the Basin, at my mate’s place, at hotels when I’m travelling – but I don’t have Sky at home. It has always been an expense too far, a luxury.
The other day, I was offered a very good deal over the regular cost of Sky. Free installation and a basic+sports+movies plan for about $10 a week for 6 out of 12 months. I think that comes out to be about half price for those 6 months.
Now, if there was a good home season of cricket (including 3 tests against Australia say), I might pay $10 a week to be able to see it if that was the only option. But to then have to keep my subscription for another 6 months off-season at the full rate largely cancels out that first 6 months of discount.
And the thing is, I don’t like television. I’m not being snooty about it, I actually really love some television (The Wire, say, or Outrageous Fortune or The Simpsons or Deadwood – great stuff!); it’s the endless stream of crud padding out the good bits that I hate, as well as the fact that you have no control over when the good stuff shows. And Sky looks like a metric ton of crud. It offers 49 channels in the basic package (though I note that many of them are free to air anyway and many others are actually radio stations, again free to air). And you must pay for those channels, including Fashion TV, Fox News, and Crime and Investigation, to say nothing of the Christian channel, if you want to get sport. Not only do I not want to have to pay for all that, I don’t want to have it on my TV.
It’s a scam, right? There isn’t a single Sky subscriber in New Zealand who gets something from all 49 channels and there isn’t a single sports fan in New Zealand who would watch Fashion TV (okay, maybe Haydn Green). I suppose you can think of those 49 channels as freebies that you get with the basic subscription, but that subscription would be much lower if there were less freebies.
On the spectrum of sports fans I would consider myself an ‘enthusiast’, not a nut. If I was a sports nut, I’d get Sky at whatever cost. But as a mere enthusiast, I’m not inclined to. And sport on TV should be reasonably available to sports enthusiasts (even snooty too-good-for-TV ones), not just sports nuts and TV nuts and the rich. That’s a fair point of view isn’t it? The fans are a critical part of sport, so shutting some of them out is bad. And it has to be bad for the sports themselves. I mean, perhaps if New Zealand cricket got wider exposure it wouldn’t have such difficulty finding a sponsor.
I was making this post to try to get some advice on whether I should take up this Sky deal, but I feel that in writing it I have convinced myself not to. But if you think you can reveal something about the Sky experience that I might like apart from the cricket, something that would justify the cost, please tell me, help me change my mind.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
We have MySky – I’m lucky enough that it’s subsidised by my place of work, but even if it wasn’t, we’d probably keep it. Being able to pause live TV, and watch stuff when we want to easily has been a revealation.
What do we watch? The news, after our son has gone to bed (he doesn’t watch TV). Sport – I tape Cricket, Rugby, Football and Cycling and watch it when I can, we’re a bit pushed for time all the time. I’d really miss being able to watch sport at home either first thing in the morning, late at night, or live as it suits. My partner is into Rugby too, and we watch the test matches together of a Saturday evening.
Other stuff? I keep an eye on the documentary channels and tape what looks good, same goes for Food Channel. I don’t think there’s a killer programme on the non-free channels that will sway you, TBH, most of the really good stuff seems to pop up on 1,2,3 or prime at some stage anyway.
That’s our experience – not sure it’ll swing you either way, but let us know how you get on.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I should add that with our wee chap, we don’t get out much(!) – I’ve commented on Hadyn’s site that MySky is pretty much our entertainment budget / enetertainment.
November 15th, 2009 at 8:29 am
I should add that with our wee chap, we don’t get out much(!) – I’ve commented on Hadyn’s site that MySky is pretty much our entertainment budget / enetertainment.
I can certainly understand. We have a four-year old and a two-year old. Not only do we not get out much, but we don’t have much time to watch TV either. A Sky enthusiast told us that any time we had a spare hour, we’d be able to find something to watch on Sky. A ‘spare hour’? Not likely.
We have been watching The Wire on DVD over the past few months. Whenever we get a new season the house goes to wrack and ruin until we’ve finished watching it. Then we have to catch up on a week’s lost cleaning and stuff.
November 15th, 2009 at 8:31 am
We have been watching The Wire on DVD over the past few months. Whenever we get a new season the house goes to wrack and ruin until we’ve finished watching it. Then we have to catch up on a week’s lost cleaning and stuff.
I tell you what, if HBO were on Sky I’d snap up a subscription.