Today there are thousands of channels and lots of different ways for us to watch. But which is the best? And what’s the cheapest way to do it?
THE BIG BUNDLES
The outlay is high, but the savings can be good too. If you need TV, a phone line and broadband it’s worth checking out the packages from the big three providers, Sky, BT and Virgin. Use a comparison website to get the best deal.
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MORE AT YOUR COMMAND
Now TV is actually from Sky. You pay for a box and then have access to Sky packages on a month-by-month basis with no contract to buy in to – you choose when you want to watch. The entertainment monthly packages are good value, but watching sport is still expensive at £6.99 for a 24-hour pass.
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DOES WHAT IT SAYS
Freeview is an amazing service. 60 digital channels, with loads of top-quality entertainment and it’s often built-in to your telly already. All for the price of the TV licence. No Sky channels and little sport is the downside.
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PRICE: £
ON DEMAND
For under £35 the Amazon Fire Stick plugs into an hdmi socket on your telly (so hi-def only) and gives you access to lots of box sets and movies to buy straight from the Amazon store as well as Netflix, iPlayer and other on-demand services. You have to have broadband though. Really makes sense if you’re already an Amazon Prime customer as you get lots of free box sets and kids movies too. There are other similar devices too like the Google Chromecast and the Roku streaming stick all of which let you access tons of films and box sets as well as Youtube.
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PRICE: ££
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Possibly the easiest and best solution for watching TV today is a computer. Together with a broadband connection a cheap PC can do everything the on demand devices can, and sometimes more.
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TV Licence required?
For now you only need to buy a TV licence if you watch (or record) live broadcast TV and/or use BBC iPlayer.. It is a myth that if you have the equipment to watch live broadcast TV you must pay the licence. You only do so if you actually do watch live TV. So it is possible to just use services such as, Netflix and others and not need to buy a TV licence, or get it refunded. Visit the TV licensing website for more.
Quids in! says…
If money is tight you could do a lot worse than ditch the expensive packages and your TV licence and manage with one of the On Demand devices that plug in your telly, or just with a PC. You’ll need to pay for broadband admittedly, but not having a TV licence will almost pay for that! And being online means you can save money in lots of other ways too.
