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Sky TV Entertainment, Sports, Movies: Channels and Packages

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Sky TV is entering its fourth decade in the UK. With Sky being a household name, you’ll have an idea of why you want a Sky TV package. Below you will be able to get an idea of your options, to help decide what Sky TV deal best for you and how much it will set you back.

All Sky TV packages start with Sky Entertainment. This is what you might call its ‘base package’, and it comes with more than 300 channels. From this base, you can customise your package according what you are looking to get from Sky. Let’s start by looking a little closer at Sky TV Entertainment.

Sky TV Entertainment Channels

Sky TV Entertainment channels include over 300 live channels - though only 100 of these are exclusive and not just Freeview channels. You also get 40 catch-up channels and the new Sky Q box. With this you can access Netflix, Spotify and YouTube apps to stream via your TV and store up to 500 hours of recorded shows.

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If this is all the Sky TV you need, you can get it for £22 per month for 18 months (after which it goes up to £27). You might be wondering why you’ve always been led to believe that Sky was expensive. Well, if you start piling up the add-ons it will add up, and the popularity of Sky Sports and Sky Cinema means that most customers end up paying quite a bit more with Sky.

Let’s take a look at all the add-ons Sky offers, and how much each will cost to add to your Sky TV package.

Sky TV Ultimate On Demand

If what you love is binge-watching series, this Sky TV package is exactly what you’re after. If you don’t already have a Netflix account, then you'll be happy to find out it comes included here. If you do have an account already, you can keep it but you won’t have to pay for it on top of this deal. Ultimate On Demand also includes over 500 Sky TV box-sets, all in HD.

To add this will cost you £12 a month. Compared to the combined cost per month of Netflix (£8.99) and Sky TV Box Sets (£5), it does save you a bit. The main appeal will be if you really are a series addict and you enjoy the convenience of finding all your shows in one place.

Sky TV HD and Ultra HD

For an extra £5 a month you can upgrade your Sky TV Entertainment package by adding channels’ HD siblings. Sky offers more than 35 HD channels in HD, including Sky Atlantic and Sky One, so, if standard definition doesn’t quite cut it for you, you may be tempted by this.

If you plan on signing up (or already have) for the Sky Q Experience and have the Sky Q 2TB box, you also have Ultra HD available to you as an add-on. We think it’s a bit much, but if you’re the kind of person who needs to have all the latest tech, for £13 a month extra you can watch certain channels in up to 4x the detail of HD.

Sky Q Experience

The Sky Q Experience allows you to link several TVs or other devices to your Sky package. All the channels in your package will be available to you as you:

  • Watch from anywhere in your home.
  • Pause in one room and pick up the same show in another.
  • Improve your Sky broadband signal with Sky Q Mini boxes.

The Experience will add £13 a month to your bill, which is a bit pricey but if you’ve got a big household with varied tastes we think it might be worth investing in this one. For full details on the Experience, see our dedicated Sky Q page.

Sky Cinema

If you’re more of a film buff, you probably had this Sky TV package in mind already. Sky Cinema doesn’t really have a serious competitor. If you add Sky TV option, you’ll get access to a library of over 1,000 films, all on-demand and in HD. This also applies if you have Sky broadband. Sky also put up a brand new premiere every day, which adds a bit of variety throughout the week. Sky TV also claims to broadcast new films 12 months before you’ll see them on other subscription services.

You can add the Sky Cinema pack for £11 a month. New releases you can already watch with this package include Holmes & Watson, Incredibles 2, and Bohemian Rhapsody. You can also watch on the go using the Sky Cinema app, which subscribers can access at no extra cost.

Sky Sports

Within Sky Sports, there are seven channels that fall under the Sky Sports bracket. All are in HD, whichever way you get them. Let’s first take a look at each of them.

Sky Sports Channels
Sky TV Sports Channel Main Sky Sports Coverage
Sky Sports Premier League Live Premier League Matches
Sky Sports Football Live Football League, SPFL, Carabao Cup and other matches
Sky Sports Formula 1 Every practice, qualifier and race
Sky Sports Golf Exclusive PGA, European and LPGA Tour event coverage
Sky Sports Cricket Ashes tests shown live exclusively here, plus other county and international matches
Sky Sports Arena NFL and NBA games
Sky Sports Action Rugby league and rugby union club matches and internationals; plus netball, darts, and more

Sky Sports segments its coverage with specific channels going for a specific sport or group of sports. BT Sport goes in a different direction with numbered channels which afford it more flexibility to move coverage around depending on live event popularity or seasonal availability. It's up to personal taste and budget to decide if you prefer the Sky TV approach or not.

You can sign up to any one of these channels individually for £18 a month, though some are paired - for example, the Premier League and Football channels come together for the same prices, as do Action and Arena. This seems to us a bit expensive for one (or at best two) channels, but Sky does offer a Complete Sports pack for £23 a month, which we think offers more value for money.

Sky TV Kids

If you’re looking for something to keep the little ones entertained, the Sky TV Kids channel package offers 8 dedicated channels for children of all ages, up to 12 years old. It also comes with access to the Sky Kids app, with which they can watch any of the 5,000+ episodes offered on demand. This add-on will bring your bill up by £5 a month - pretty good value for keeping engaged.

Sky TV Kids Channels
Sky TV Kids Channels Sky TV Kids Details
Nickelodeon Daytime programming aimed at nursery school ages while later programming is for older children.
Nick Jr Focus on programming for nursery school aged children
Nick Jr too An extension of the main Nick Jr. channel aimed at pre-school ages
Nick Toons Exclusive cartoons produced by Nickelodeon is the focus here
Cartoon Network Children's TV aimed at a variety of age groups with original programming
Cartoonito Aimed at nursery school aged children
Boomerang Retro children's television themed channel showing vintage cartoons and shows
BabyTV A 24/7 channel aimed at babies and toddlers exclusively

Sky Kids TV channels cover all ages, from babies to teens. Additionally, Sky TV Kids offers educational TV content which can help to support UK children during school closures due to weather or other unforeseen events. Additionally, this Sky TV deal let's parents control what children can watch by allowing for the creation of personal profiles for different children to use.

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Sky TV Bundles

The above add-on prices are not the only way of putting together your Sky TV package, however - if so, it would likely bankrupt you. Sky also offers a series of bundles to give customers a chance at saving on the services they’re looking for, apart from its TV and broadband bundle. Let’s run you through them.

Sky TV All-Together Bundle

With the All-Together Bundle, if you keep four packs for 18 months, you can get each at a discounted rate. You must keep all four for the duration of your contract to keep getting the discount. Here are the packs and how much you’ll pay for them:

Sky TV Bundle Details
Sky Entertainment £15/month
HD Pack £4/month
Sky TV Complete Sports £23/month
Sky Cinema £5/month

If you were planning on getting the Sky TV Complete Sports pack anyway, we’d say it makes total sense to get the All-Together Bundle. It comes in at just £2 a month more expensive than combining Complete Sports with the Entertainment pack, and for this you get the HD pack and Sky Cinema thrown in - a pretty good saving.

Remember, though, that if you remove one of these Sky TV packs from your deal you’ll revert to paying full price for each of the remaining ones. Remember also that after 18 months (whether you sign up for the bundle or not) you’ll start paying full price for each pack as well.

Home Cinema Bundle

The Home Cinema Bundle allows film-lovers to save on their package without having to sign up to a sports pack they don’t want. It’s essentially the All-Together Bundle minus the sport:

Sky TV Bundle Details
Sky Entertainment £15/month
HD Pack £5/month
Sky Cinema £11/month

Sky TV subscribers here are charged £6 more per month for Sky Cinema. You do still save £16 a month overall, though, which we’d say is a pretty good saving. If all you want is HD TV channels and Cinema, you get a pretty good deal on it here.

Sky TV Contact Number

If you need to contact Sky TV, you may want to check the Sky TV help centre since you might find a solution without having to speak to someone over the phone or through live chat. Find out more about this and other helpful features of your My Sky account in our My Sky page.

Cancel Sky TV

To cancel your Sky TV subscription, you’ll need to give them 31 days’ notice - unless you’re in the ‘cooling off’ period. This is a period of 31 days after i) delivery of your wireless router; ii) activation; or iii) the receipt of terms and conditions for your product/service. During this period you can cancel at any time at no charge.

Sky recommends calling them on 03337 592 654 or messaging them via their online chat service if you want to cancel. This will get your cancellation request moving in the quickest way possible.

Sky TV Reviews

Reviews for Sky TV don’t look great, but it’s difficult to gauge opinion on its TV packages alone. Ratings on the independent review site Trustpilot tend to lump products together, (Sky Broadband and Mobile, for example,) so Sky TV scoring a 1.4 out of 5 rating may not reflect exactly what subscribers feel about its TV service.

We’ve combed through recent reviews, however, to try and get an idea of what customers are saying about Sky TV specifically. We’ll start with a rare positive review:

Overall they have been pretty good. No troubles with the Sky+ box or the dish. Signal will only ever be disrupted in extreme weather conditions…

Reviews like this are often in a minority on sites like Trustpilot, with most users only turning to the site in order to complain, but there is a (12%) smattering of 4 and 5 star reviews from users who haven’t had a bad experience with Sky. There is, of course, the other (heavier) side to this coin, as the same reviewer goes on to point out:

Like all of these companies they find ways of making more money out of you.

This is the biggest gripe that Sky reviews, whether negative or positive, point towards. Negative reviewers invariably complain either of rising costs or the difficulty of leaving a deal they can no longer afford. Our advice is: if you’re not quite sure if you can afford Sky, or know that if hidden or rising costs would leave you in serious difficulties, play it safe and don’t get Sky TV. You wouldn’t be the first to be hit with an unexpectedly expensive bill, or to have trouble getting free of it when it happens and you need to cancel.

Sky TV Frequently Asked Questions

Take a look below for answers on common queries regarding Sky TV options and services.

Can I get Sky Sports without getting Sky Entertainment?

In short, no. All Sky packages come with Sky Entertainment as a base Sky TV package.

Can I add BT Sports to my package?

Yes, but this is something you arrange with BT. Once your Sky TV services are active, you can contact BT to add their Sports package to your deal.

How to Watch BT Sport on Sky If you have Sky TV and want to watch BT Sport on Sky, read our How to Watch BT Sport on Sky guide to find out everything you need to know.

Can I get Sky TV installed without any drilling done in my home?

Because a dish needs to be fixed to your house, there may be a little drilling needed to get things working, but this is something you can discuss with Sky’s engineers. They can advise you on your options based on your needs on the day of installation.

Can I watch a boxing match on Sky Box Office without a subscription?

Nope. Sky Box Office events are available only to Sky TV subscribers.

The services and products mentioned on this website may only represent a small selection of the options available to you. Selectra encourages you to carry out your own research and seek advice if necessary before making any decisions. We may receive commission from selected partner providers on sales of some products and/or services mentioned within this website. Our website is free to use, and the commission we receive does not affect our opinion or the information we provide.

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