Like the last one, except selling "Art". Yip "Art" and "Sky" in the same sentence. Anyway some old soak, stands playing a saxophone, telling us about the great the "Arts" coverage on Sky. You know grey hair, balding blah blah blah. "Sky" and I'm paraphrasing here "has great arts coverage. You never know what you'll see" more saxophone action and then he's off.
Except you can't just subscribe to Sky Arts. No way. You have to take out their "Style and Culture" pack which includes such er gems as Discovery Shed and Sky Travel. Which is at odds with Sky's long held opposition to the TV licence, based on the proposition that the viewer is forced to pay for channels they don't want.
They even make the following statement on their website
"Start building your TV package with Sky TV. We've organised our fantastic range of digital TV channels into six themed Entertainment Packs, so you only ever pay for TV you want to watch. Take one Entertainment Pack, for £17.50 a month, and add more for an extra £1 a month each. All six Entertainment Packs are just £22.50 a month, plus you will automatically receive over 200 free-to-air TV channels."
Which means that if you want to watch Arts on Sky programming you also must want to see Current TV and Sky Real Lives, as "you only ever pay for the TV you want to watch" That's a pretty specific demographic Sky have sown up there. I wonder what research they did to identify the demand for lumping all these unrelated channels into one lovely, tasty morsel? Still what do you expect from a crowd who advertise unlimited broadband with a download limit and unlimited calls with a time limit? Obviously their definition of "unlimited" is as at odds with reality as their definition of "Knowledge"
Of course it's bollox. What's even more entertaining is if you phone up to ask why you have pay for channels you don't watch*. The answer? If you were able to pick and chose your own channels rather than taking the ones bundled by Sky, then the unpopular ones would go bust.
Sky. Paying for the TV you want to watch. Kind of.
*Just on this. There are many things you can do on the Sky website, such as manage your account. Now by "manage" I mean buy additional services. It is impossible to downgrade or cancel your account online. Which is odd. Even more peculiar is that if you try to use the FAQ to help you find out how to cancel or downgrade your package then you are in for a disappointment. There isn't a single word about this in the FAQ . Not a peep. Clearly this suggests that no-one has ever decided to change their channel package, or, god forbid, cancel the whole thing. Ever. Or, if it does happen, it's so rare that there is no fixed procedure to deal with if.. I mean you'd think if such circumstances had arisen more than say three times (hard to believe I know, but the annual higher than inflation subscription price rise might be enough for some tightwads to at least consider the value for money aspect of Sky) you'd think there'd be some indication on their website how you go about doing it. Wouldn't you? Funnily enough the last time I rang Sky I asked about this omission. "Why can't I cancel or downgrade my channel package via the online account management screen?" "Because" I was told "that would put me out of a job."
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