'VarietyTV' please can someone explain what it is?? I pay £42 a month for it and I dont know what

[Cruiser1]

I am unfortunately profoundly deaf and can't use a phone,  but there is no way of contacting sky tv there is totally a useless chatbot thing that is absolutely ridiculous!!!

Please can someone explain what variety tv is?  I pay £42 a month for this and have no idea what it is.  I pay whatever for sky sport and than this £42 for variety tv? If its UK gold then its not worth paying for as they show the same episode every night! Madness 

[Mark39 · Accepted solution]

There are,additional contact options for the hard of hearing via Sky's Accessibility team. You can register here: https://www.skyaccessibility.sky

The Variety package is a legacy basic viewing package, containing not just UK gold but all the non-premium channels such as Sky Sports and Sky Cinema. 

Because it's a legacy package, it's unduly expensive especially if you're out of contract. Switching to the current Signature package,would be cheaper. However Sky may not allow ypu to switch unless you also upgrade to Sky Q.

[Cruiser1]

Hmmm,  OK but I also 30+  quid for sky sports.  This is really unfair, as this is an elderly person who hasn't got a clue what sky Q is???

[Mark39]

Sky Sports is a premium add-on. Again, if you're out of contract, you're likely to be paying full price for it unnecessarily. 

Sky Q is Sky's current hardware for receiving satellite TV. Sky+ is a legacy platform - the most recent Sky+ boxes were manufactured 8 years ago.

My fellow Superuser @nigea99 has put together an excellent comparison between Sky+ and Sky Q which I think you would find useful. @nigea99 when you have a mo would you mind posting a link to it?

[nigea99]

hi @Cruiser1 

I think we should also point out that SKY Sports is an 'add on' to the mandatory  'base' entertainment subscription.

As @Mark39 mentions your base subscription of Variety is now a very old package - the current one is SKY Signature which may be better value as it is often on offer

You cannot have any add ons without having the Base package - this contains various channels mainly entertainment channels but some extra news ones.

Yes the base packages do include Gold and also Alibi from UKTV but also the SKY entertainment ones such as SKY Atlantic , SKY Showcase, SKY Max

We know some people do only want the Sports channels but this is not possible via SKY - as mentioned you must have the 'base' package with the Sports as an 'add on'

The notes I have put together are to help people decide see what switching to SKY Q entails and does cover some of the key differences (although not all) 

SKY +/HD to SKY Q

Sorry this may be a bit long but I think  it may be worth you  reading  

If you have any further  specific queries do not hesitate to ask & we will try to answer

[TimmyBGood]

@Cruiser1 

Sky pays out billions each year to acquire sports rights (PL is £1 point 2 billion a season by itself) and so a Sky Sports subscription add-on is always an expensive extra on top of a baseline channel bundle.