13 
Did you know that Sky’s giving away a smidgeon of its programming on Freeview channel 11 on Thursday evenings? Well, you do now. It’s nice of them, but giving stuff away to the public while shafting its paying customers isn’t going down well on Twitter at all. #freeskythursdays turns up a whole lotta abuse right now, following in a hallowed trend of PR stunts backfiring.
It doesn’t help that Sky’s advertising the fact with:
Freeview viewers rejoice – it’s the first of our #freeSKYthursdays, which means you can see some of the best Sky shows available tonight!
— Sky Movies (@skymovies) January 24, 2013
which reads more like “Poor people rejoice! The mighty Sky overlords are letting you peons glimpse, for an evening, how the priviledged people live!” Thanks ever so much for the free stuff — honestly, I’m not going to begrudge a giveaway — but you could sound a little less like a Roman emperor throwing bread to the starving peasants.
@skymovies do existing customers get a discount on our bill for #freeskythursdays ? Not fair that we pay for something others get free — Grace Lymath (@ericasmummy) January 24, 2013
#freeSKYthursdays okay so people who don’t have sky get rewards, yet us customers don’t — ₳ Bridges ₳ (@missbridgess) January 24, 2013
And my personal favourite:
#freeSKYthursdays is the top trend on twitter, i didnt realise it was sky TV i thought skyy bar had just got really popular over night. — Sophie Rogers (@sophie_rogerss) January 24, 2013
Not sure I get the reaction here, they give away tasters of cereals in my Students’ Union, I don’t complain to Kelloggs because I buy full packs :S. Okay, I guess that’s not 100% similar, but still the reason they pay for Sky is gonna be for more than just Thursday evenings, so personally don’t see the fuss :S.
Agreed, except that I think it is exactly like the cereal promotion you mentioned.
Not exactly, if you pick up free cereal and don’t use the stuff you’ve purchased while you eat the free stuff the paid for cereal isn’t going anywhere, and you can put off buying more for a day or two. You can’t exactly do that with a subscription service.
Also this is just after sky announced that in order to download programming which people are already paying a massive monthly fee for to their tablets/phones it’s going to cost another £5 a month.
Practically the definition of a first world problem but still a poor move from sky. Add to that the condescending tone of the announcement tweet and that’s a good way to get on people’s nerves.
Hi, I don’t usually do stuff like this but, your song ‘Taco Flavored Kisses’ got me through a bad point in my life and gavce me the strength to carry on.
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I have n o interest on Sky it’s programming or service. This is one of those things just to get people to follow a tv series or similar. Sky Three if I remember correctly used to be free until they decided otherwise.
Sky Three is free, however it is just called Pick TV now, coincidentally this is the channel that Free Sky Thursdays is airing on.
Sounds like the usual internet grumping. Their aim is obviously to increase their subscriber base, which they can only do by appealing to non-subscribers since existing subscribers are unlikely to subscribe a second time. This just shows that there’s always someone unhappy and on the internet.
Customers, us, are just dumb.
Freeview already has Pick TV, which is a collection of Sky adverts about how great Sky is, with about 5 minutes of actual programs before more Sky adverts come on. I’ll never get Sky due to the high level of adverts on their main channels.
Oh, and I’ll torrent the shit out of anything they have that’s worth watching… which isn’t much.
This is so true. The idea of paying to watch adverts….
Then don’t pay… there are ways.
Im not sucking off a horse again………
On a serious note please teach me.
Channel four have lots of adverts you can watch and if you skip between a few TV channels you can get about 20mins in the hour worth all for free.
You can record a whole 4 hours of programming on Tivo and then just fast forward through the programs to watch the adverts. Wahey!
DM Me on Twitter, same username, I’ll tell you how.
will do
First world problems.
why bother contributing if all you’re going to say is ‘First world problems’?
We all know it’s not a major problem considering many things around the world and don’t need some sanctimonious poster trying to make other posters feel bad for commenting.
You’ve obviously got a computer and no doubt other gadgets etc that if you hadn’t bought but instead sent the money to Africa it could have paid for clean fresh water for a village or helped to educate 20 kids in Asia or a million other things to help solve ‘Third world problems’.
You don’t understand what first world problems are then. They’re inconveniences or non issues self-centred people have.
No, he perfectly understands the usage of the term, he’s just expressing frustration that it seems to being regurgitated in the comments section so frequently without any follow up. Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a big deal. Saying ‘first world problems’ is unimaginative, boring, and pointless.
I thought it was pretty valid myself and people being selfish should be lightly criticised.
Thank you and exactly!
I’m not saying it can’t be overused though.
I do understand.
Can you please go on an internet crusade and put this every time someone says ‘First world problems’. That phrase is mildly amusing when used tongue-in-cheek or to take the piss out of yourself, but to use as a serious retort? God DAMN it’s annoying.
I agree with your feelings about it and I may well copy and paste it whenever I feel it’s relevant but afraid I have to decline the crusade suggestion
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=first+world+problems
Aaaand go!
Would that in itself be a ‘firstworldproblem’ though?! woh!!!
Firstworldproblemception indeed
.
FREE SKY THURSDAYS – Sky Thursdays is innocent.
I heard they were accessory’s after the fact
It was all Bill Stickers fault. Prosecute him instead!
People just love to complain. Today it’s about Sky.
They also used to show sky sports news on freeview. The channels gonna be jammed full of adverts for sky shows that we can’t watch on freeview.
People love to have a moan at Sky’s expense. That is what this is all about.
Well if I was paying money for that rubbish I’d moan about the expense too.
As a Sky customer, I couldn’t give 2 shits.
How many could you give? One, one and a half? Or are you saying that as a sky customer you are so use to having your shit delivered to you that you no longer produce it yourself
Zing!
I, on the other hand, if I’d enjoyed a nice spicy Phaal earlier in the evening, could certainly stretch to at least one shit aimed in Sky’s general direction. I think the investment and toilet paper required to give a second shit however would be completely unfounded.
Steam do free weekends on games. You don’t get people moaning about how they’re getting a free ride. They just take the opportunity to frag some n00bs.
Is this really so much different from World of Warcraft giving away the first month free offer to enable you to try the game out before you decide to pay a subscription?
If you look at the programmes Sky is laying on it’s hardly exciting.
I didn’t hear sky sports viewers moaning when they did sky sports free weekends, or Movies either for that matter. These people need to stop clutching at straws and get on with their lives. Anyway sky do have rewards for their own customers, its called sky rewards, there you go now go suck on your lolly pop.