Foolishly, I have this wild notion that one day, if the stars align in my favour, I might be able to reduce my Sky subscription. I know, I know. What a crazy, idealistic dreamer I am. But I just feel it ought to be possible to watch television for less than a thousand pounds a year.
I seem to remember, in the dark recesses of my brain, that once upon a time, far away in a wonderful utopia where TVs had big fat buttons, there used to be three channels with everything you wanted to see on them and no more bureaucratic or financial a nightmare to access this simple pleasure than paying a licence fee of a few pounds. Now the licence fee — inflated enough in itself — is the least of your worries as the payments to Sky grow bigger and more inexplicable.
When I first subscribed to get access to all the channels I never want to watch, I distinctly remember the charge being about £20 a month for something called ‘The Original Bundle’.
Before I knew it, The Original Bundle had crept up to £38.50. Every time I rang Sky to complain, they would inform me that to keep ‘my movies’ and ‘all my favourite shows’ I would have to pay through the nose or enter a new contract — or both, as it always turned out.
‘You want to keep your movies and all your favourite shows, don’t you?’ a bossy person would say, in a voice that more than communicated that I would live to rue the day if my answer was no.
‘Y-es, I suppose,’ I would reply, wondering what these favourite shows were. All I ever watch is Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Family Guy and old reruns of Friends, and even those only keep me mildly entertained.
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