'Well we've been without Sky for a fortnight and haven't missed it...'

TV We called and cancelled our Sky subscription yesterday. It was actually easier than I thought it would be, but I did feel like I was letting an old friend go. As I might have mention before we have a communal dish on our roof which services all the flats. Being on the roof, and the roof being high up it has a tendancy to go out of alignment in high winds or else fall over completely and it takes up to a week for the signal to go back on. It happened again a fortnight ago and never returned. Ours was the flat which apparently it never returned to and over the past couple of weeks we really haven't missed it that much. It was expensive, really and after the initial excitement of a couple of years ago it slowly becoming clear that exciting new things were become few and far between. So we took the decision to turn it off.

We rang them. My Dad's the account holder so he went through the security check and then he passed the phone to me. I was passed through at least two other people before I spoke to a girl with a Glasgow lilt. I told her we wanted to cancel. She asked why. I told her, that it was massively expensive really, about the technical issues and dropped in the clanger, 'Well we've been without Sky for a fortnight and haven't missed it...'
Her: I see that you've been having problems with your system. I can offer you the family package (which it the one without movies) which is usually £19.95 for £13.50 for three months.
Me: No thanks. We'd just like to cancel.
There followed a rather strange conversation about how Freeview is no good and that Top-Up TV isn't worth it. It seemed more than her job's worth to let us go. But I was firm.
Me: We'd just like to cancel.

I've been reading today that new Sky subsciber numbers are dropping quarter on quarter. I wonder what their attrition rates are.

Thirty days notice and that's it. Gone. It's only TV but I remember when we first got the system in August 2002. I sat for four hours working my way through the available channels. After being stung by ITV Digital we were a multi-channel family and it was going to be great. But then week after week I'd be scanning the TV listings and the same films would keep cropping up, and tv shows and anything I'd want to watch was on BBC Four. I have my own Freeview box in my room so I have access anyway. The final straw was joining ScreenSelect and having the choice of watching anything released on DVD ever mostly when I wanted and Sky just stopped having appeal. I'd witness the slow decline of Mtv and I didn't need it anymore.