Sky TV’s new Sky Box: Can I keep the device if I cancel my subscription?

Sky TV's new Sky Box, atop the decoder that it replaces. Photo / File

Sky TV’s new Sky Box, launched this week, costs $200 - either up-front or in monthly $10 instalments - plus a further $15 per month to unlock its ability to record five channels at once. Install is DIY.

One of the first questions the Herald received from a potential Sky Box customer was: “Will I own the Sky Box after paying my $200?”

If you owned the box, then you could use it for accessing free-to-air channels and apps after cancelling a Sky subscription.

But you don’t.

“It [the $200 payment] is a one-off charge for the use of the new box - and Sky retains ownership of the box,” corporate affairs chief Chris Major said.

“So if you cancel your Sky account in the future, then you will need to return the box.”

Some don’t get full discount, despite qualifying

Not everyone will have to pay the full $200. Sky is offering its new hardware free to subscribers who have been with it for more three decades, with tiers of discounts below that. All up, some 75 per cent of subs qualify for at least $50 off.

Don’t be shy of appealing if you are a longtime Sky sub who did not get the full loyalty offer. Three Herald subscribers said they each only got offered the minimum $50 off despite having a sub for more than 30 years.

Sky did not immediately detail if it cost more than $200 to get the Sky Box into customers’ hands but reiterated that it had spent a lot of money on the multi-year effort.

“Our investment in the R&D, along with the best-in-class chipsets and the costs to get the product to market, has been in the tens of millions of dollars,” Major said.

If you include the $38 million that Sky wrote off on an earlier effort at an Android box, and the $7m it spent keeping the lights on at Vodafone TV, then it’s really behind the eight ball.

Among other gadgets for accessing apps and 4K, Sky’s own Sky Pod has a $100 up-front payment; Apple TV4K costs $279 with Wi-Fi and 64GB of storage or $319 with Wi-Fi, ethernet and 128GB of storage; Google’s Chromecast costs $69 with HD or $89 with 4K and an Amazon Fire TV Stick $89 or $109 with 4K.

The days of Sky NZ picking up hardware from Foxtel or Sky UK are long gone (they haven’t shared Rupert Murdoch as a common investor for a long time).

The new Sky Box is made in Indonesia by South Korea’s Kaon Media - a big player in Android TV and Wi-Fi hardware - that displaced Sky’s longtime hardware supplier Pace. French firm Wyland did the systems integration and broadcasting software stack, Dutch firm Irdeto was responsible for the intellectual property and cybersecurity protections, and US outfit Universal Electronics (UEI) made the remote.

Early demand

Sky began to send emails inviting customers to upgrade to the Sky box at 10am yesterday. Some 75 per cent are being offered a loyalty discount, which ranges from $50 off to free, depending on how long they’ve been with the broadcaster. Curiosity was such that some readers said they found Sky’s website overloaded and inaccessible at times.

“We’re delighted with the early engagement from our customers, with orders coming in from early this morning,” Major said late yesterday.

But the Sky exec would not give any numbers at this point.

In February, Sky reported 1.05 million customers, with 517,000 using its satellite decoder, and the balance on its Neon or Sky Sport Now streaming apps.

The broadcaster says those happy with the current decoder can stick with it.

Read the Herald’s review of the new Sky Box here.