Sky charge for Freeview??

[strid]

OK, I've knocked multi room on the head and was told by the customer service guys that the box can still be used for freeview....cool I thought some decent digital viewing still available to the bedroom, especially my favorite channel - Dave.
But how wrong was I. How is it that via freeview on my Panny downstairs Dave is there and free yet bloody sky want a £1 extra / month....and it's the same with a number of other so called freeview channels??? What gives??

 

[Starburst]

Freeview is the DTT service, it has nothing to do with satellite. What you can get on a SKY digibox connected to a dish is Freesatfromsky and some of the Freeview channels are broadcast on satellite as FTA or FTV (no subscription) while others due to rights issues and the desire to make money from subscriptions (missing on Freeview) are in SKY pay packages or VM pay packages on Cable.


It's entirely upto the owners of DAVE and the other Dsat channels (which are on Freeview as well) if they want to broadcast without the need for payment, SKY make them an offer which they can take or leave so while you can point your finger at SKY it's the desire to make more money from subscriptions than advertising alone which plays it's part.
CH4 is expected to go FTA probably around Oct 2008 which in turn means E4 and More4 will also go FTA, no indication of anyother PAY broadcaster is considering going in the clear on satellite at this time.


The extra £1 probably means the multiroom smartcard is still carrying at least 1 MIX subscription, adding a second MIX (which includes DAVE) costs an £1 a month. When the cancellation notice is up then adding Dave to the ex-multiroom box will cost £16 or £10 if you go back to multiroom.

 

[strid]

^^

Great info, thanks

 

[davemurgatroyd2]

Your subscription card from your main box can be used in any other box for all the mix channels you subscribe to - although it will not work for premium channels (Sky Sports and Movies).