I haven’t had a tv licence for years and do not miss BBC, ITV iplayer etc.
Not needed for Netflix,You tube or Prime.
Another £160. Saved.
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I tend to follow Martin Lewis’s advice, and just sign up for one for a month, then move onto another next month, and just rotate as needed.
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An interesting observation, as once the better quality legacy offerings had been viewed (Bosch et al), there doesn’t appear to be much new stuff coming through. Some of the films are good, but the selection is pretty thin, unless you want the true C/D-movies.
In my case I have an ingrained dislike of subscription services, and certainly would never use them as my sole or primary source of music, for multiple reasons. OK for sampling new music I suppose, but so far I’ve managed with free Spotify (though if has become annoying), and the likes of uTube and artist websites etc.
I never succumbed to Sky TV however we do use Netflix - one of my sons subscribes. Having found if a great resource as broadcast TV has less and less of interest, so once he leaves home we will probably subscribe to that unless we can find a way of getting round their multi-site limitation, in which case we’ll probably shame.
I have the same dislike of subscription software, and would much rather buy a license contact done with it. For that reason I have ceased updsting varioys things.
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I’m with GadgetMan.
We’ve only recently started using TV streaming services.
We currently have Disney+ courtesy of our bank, Now TV on a 6 month deal at £6.99 per month and just done Prime as it’s free for a month, in which time we’ll buy what we require and watch series we’ve been recommended. At the end of free/discounted periods, we’ll swap and do a couple of months of Apple TV and then Netflix.
We do, like many spend 30 minutes or so trying to find something to watch and invariably giving up.
Go Martin Lewis 
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Interesting to note some people using Amazon Prime for free delivery: dies it actually save money? Most of the things I buy through Amazon are free delivery anyway! Delivery may be slower, but in reality few things are really urgent. I don’t like playing for other reasons, notablt the insidious way it tries to pull you in. That just makes me want to have nothing to do with it. And I also prefer to buy from other places if I can at reasonable price rather than helping somebody already mega-rich get richer when other sellers may benefit more (and possibly more tax might get paid).
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We had Amazon Prime for a while but no longer have it. They are hugely efficient but their anti union stance and they way they minimise tax - I know it’s legal - mean I’d rather shop elsewhere, even if it’s slower or costs more. Saving every penny isn’t the most important thing.
We have a Cinema Paradiso subscription, where DVDs arrive in the post, which is excellent. We tried Netflix but finding something good among the crap is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I’m using Tidal for a while but expect I’ll stop it soon and buy some of the albums I’ve been enjoying. I’ve got well over 4,000 albums on the NAS, but it’s good to find new stuff.
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I solve this by not using Amazon…
I do not wish to use then. I live near Coventry, so Amazon’s ‘antics’ wrt unions and their workers is close at hand. Despicable.
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With both PayPal and Apple you can login and see what you subscribe to and cancel. It can be hard to navigate to the page with the list of subscriptions, I always have a hard time with PayPal, but once you find the list it is very simple to cancel. I try to subscribe via one of those services because it is so easy to get an overview and cancel.
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We tried the usual subscription services on a monthly trial and found Apple TV the best. Although that might have been just for those moments in time as they all have “exclusive” series at random.
Unless your a fan of dystopian sci fi drama then your not missing out.
Surprisingly we have found dear old YouTube worth going down the paid premium route.
Just asking, be interested to know your source for that assertion…tvlicensing dot co dot uk, suggests otherwise? Thread is subscription services…?
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A tv licence is required to view programmes that you watch whilst they are being broadcast and bbc I player. This doesn’t include streaming services but might if you watched a YouTube boxing match whilst it was being fought. TV licensing is a private company whose remit is to get you to buy a tv license.
There are two you tube authorities Black Belt Barrister ( When you need to pay for a tv licence ) the guy is a solicitor and Chilli John Carne. Please don’t take my word for it.
If I am wrong I will buy a license tomorrow.
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Top tip if you have Amazon Prime and don’t like the ads: use the Amazon Prime Kodi addon and the ads are gone, even on Freevee as well.
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I haven’t looked at the legislation, which needs a fair bit of cross-referring, but according to TVlicensing.co.uk, without being covered by a TV Licence it is an offence: to use or install TV receiving equipment to:
- watch TV channels, like BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Dave and international channels
- watch TV on pay TV services, like Sky, Virgin Media and BT
- watch live TV on streaming services, like YouTube and Amazon Prime Video
- use BBC iPlayer*
This includes recording and downloading. On any device.
In a different part of their website thay say: you need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus content on BBC iPlayer, plus streaming news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Netflix and Freely.
From this it would appear not to be necessary fo streaming non-live things from the likes of Netflix and youtube.
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I live in remotest Berkshire , we have a farm shop - but Newbury and Reading are each ten miles away .
Amazon Prime were very good during the pandemic and for getting obscure items , I will happily pay for music from Presto . I regard them (amazon) with ambivalence .
I think Sky is good value and have added TNT to get Champion’s League .
Just bought a ND5XS2 , enjoying the quality DAC and internet radio. Would love NAIM to add Presto .
PS I use Apple to store my docs in the Cloud , the accounts of having to pay for services on a Lexus - amazing
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BMW is playing with a subscription model for vehicle features too. A particular example I heard of recently was heated front seats that cost £70 per year. But I also heard that BMW had abandoned that exact instance, presumably because they found few actually subscribed.
My BMW is nearly 4 years old and I had to pay £79 to buy a year of map updates because we were going to be in France and my wife said that she wouldn’t help with finding our way if I didn’t update the French mapping (which was the 2020 version). So I did as I was told and then was exasperated to discover that it still didn’t know about a major road change near Bordeaux airport that I recall was an issue in our last BMW. But quite amusing was that for about 5 km it had the actual road located a few hundred metres away from where it actually was and it assumed we were driving in the lake alongside the road! There was a lot of “recalculating route”. I was glad when it sorted itself out and sanity returned.
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Depends. When I lived in Tokyo it was great. Not only was it free but ordered before 3pm it was also same day. I’d get it by 8pm!
Then I moved off the mainland. Now even Prime there is a surcharge to deliver to Hokkaido and what was same day now becomes 48hrs at the absolute earliest. So, no, in some cases it seems to be money down the drain. I almost never open the Prime app anymore because there is never anything to watch on it usually and their UI is just impossible to navigate.
Prime desktop will show your savings over a year. I’ve saved £95 this year so still worth having.
I find subscription models are horses for courses. For some things, it works very well for me and does save money - mainly work related. For others, I’d rather just have a one off purchase option. The two main advantages from the suppliers point of view is a steady and reasonably predictable income and a reliance on laziness so that they do not get cancelled.
For TV, I just switch the ones off when there is no series on that we want to watch (and increasingly there aren’t as some have mentioned above). Some services become a lot cheaper when you go to cancel (NOW TV Sport is a prime example).
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I’ve given up using my inbuilt sat nav due to issues like this and now always use my phone and Google Maps. The downside is the screen is not as large but at least you have up-to-date maps and real-time traffic info.