Details have been announced this week of the Sky Sports packages on Virgin TV – here’s the lowdown on the three bundles available…

The Followers Bundle

Aimed at keen followers and centred around Barclays Premiership League Football.

Includes Sky Sports and Sky Sports News

£13.50 a month for the first 2 months, then £19 a month – save £9 a month compared to Sky.

The Fans Bundle

A step up, featuring Barclays Premier League and Champions League games in HD.

Includes -

• Sky Sports 1 HD
• Sky Sports 2 HD
• Sky Sports 3 and 4
• Sky Sports News
• British Euro Sport

£27.50 a month for the first 2 months, then £33 a month – save £13 a month compared to Sky.

The Fanatics Bundle

One for the total fanatics, with all the football matches in HD and a full range of all sport.

Includes -

• Sky Sports 1 HD
• Sky Sports 2 HD
• Sky Sports 3 and 4
• Sky Sports News
• British Euro Sport
• ESPN HD

£27.50 a month for the first 2 months, then £50.50 a month – save £9.50 a month compared to Sky.

Top Up TV has announced that it will bring Sky Sports 1 & Sky Sports 2 to over 10 million Freeview homes in the UK when it launches its new sports packs on Monday 2 August 2010. This is quite a coup for the sports fans out there who don’t want to subscribe to Sky, Virgin and BT as Sky Sports 1 & 2 combined with ESPN will give you live access to 2010/11 Barclays Premier League games and Champions League matches previously only available on satellite and cable, plus a vast array of other sports.
 
This is also the first time customers are able to get Sky Sports without taking any bundled services like broadband and phone, and is the lowest stand-alone price for sport in the UK, with Sky Sports 1 available for just £22.99 a month, Sky Sports 1 & 2 for £31.99 a month and the whole pack, Sky Sports 1 & 2 and ESPN, for just £39.99 a month.

Hurry – Top Up TV will also offer Sky Sports 1 & 2 free for the first month, with no obligation to a contract, if you subscribe before 6th September 2010. Click here to go straight to the Top Up TV site.

If you want to compare Sky Sports packages the basic Sky+ with Sky Sports package is here and the Virgin Sky Sports package is here.

Great news – if you’re quick. The £25 Marks and Spencer voucher that comes free when you join Sky TV online has been doubled to a £50 for a limited time only (must end June 24th).

This makes the deal in this previous post best Sky Sports deal even better….

With the World Cup starting very shortly a lot of people are looking for the cheapest way to get Sky Sports in time for all the action, and if you’re not necessarily bothered about having HD (for now anyway – you can always add it later) then this deal is a corker.

Until recently the Sky+ deals without HD came with a free Sky+ Box but were subject to a standard £30 installation – now you can get that free too if you take out Sky Sports or Sky Movies, and a £25 M&S voucher into the bargain.

The Sky+ with Sky Sports package is £27 a month plus standard Sky or BT line rental and includes

• Free Sky+ box
• Free standard set-up
• Sky Sports 1 or 2
• 1 Other Entertainment Pack – see Sky TV packages
• 2Mb Sky Broadband with free evening & weekend UK calls
• £25 M&S Voucher when you join online

Check it out on the Sky website here.

Here’s another money-saving offer for anyone looking to take out Sky TV and phone or for existing TV customers looking to add a landline phone service – 6 months free broadband!

From now until 31st May a new customer ordering Sky TV and taking Sky Talk Line Rental (£11 p/m) and Calls (either the free Sky Talk Freetime or the £5-a-month Sky Talk Unlimited) will get 6 months Broadband Unlimited (up to 20Mb) free. This offer is also open to existing Sky TV customers in just the same way if they take the phone service with one of the two calling packages.

If you’re in the market now is a pretty good time for Sky TV deals – this latest offer is on top of the £25 M&S voucher Sky are giving away to online customers and the free Sky+HD Box when you get Sky+HD online.

Sky have announced today that a deal has been struck to launch Sky Player on a range of web connected TVs and set-top boxes, which will give customers another way to receive the selection of Sky’s live and on-demand TV that Sky Player offers.

The deal involves Cello, a TV manufacturer who pioneered web-connected TVs in 2009 with the iViewer and 3View, who produce personal video recorders (PVRs) which combine access to internet video services with digital TV broadcasts. Director of On-Demand at Sky, Griff Parry, said of the news:

“The coming together of ground-breaking video services like Sky Player with innovative platforms like Cello and 3View demonstrates the vibrancy of the evolving internet video-on-demand sector.  We will continue to look at opportunities to distribute Sky Player across new platforms, to give consumers even more choice and control over how they access high-quality pay TV content.”

It’s been announced that Sky are to launch their Sky 3D channel on April 3rd with the match between Chelsea and Manchester Utd, which will be seen by punters in around 1000 pubs all wearing 3D glasses (the punters, not the pubs…)

This 3D treat will be followed by at least another 5 Premier League games – details to be announced – before the end of the season on Sunday 9th May, and the Coca-Cola Football League Play-Off Finals from Wembley Stadium at the end of May.

As discussed here some of the leading electronics manufacturers have unveiled 3D TV products recently so with the official launch of the UK’s first 3D channel it looks like it’s all systems go for the new format – time will tell.

Time for another ‘Deal Alert” – Sky have started to offer the Sky+HD box free even if you don’t take out the HD pack at £10 per month (although there is a £30 set-up fee). Until yesterday you had to pay £49 for the box if you didn’t take it in conjunction with the monthly HD Pack.

Here’s the difference – take the box with the HD Pack and you’ve got Supertelly (as long as you have an HD Ready TV then you have everything you need for full HD glory, which is what Supertelly is all about). Take the box without the HD Pack (deals start at £18 a month) and you’ve essentially got yourself a free Sky+ Box – although as already mentioned with a £30 set-up fee. The box is identical but without the HD Pack it’s a Sky+ Box rather than a Sky+HD Box – geddit?

So money-wise if you want HD channels and pay £10 a month for the HD Pack you’ll save £30 on set-up fees, as the Sky+HD Box is still free with free set-up on this deal.

The old standard Sky Box remains available only as part of a new Multiroom subscription.

We had to feature this story as a bit of local interest – The Royal Oak in St. John’s Way, Archway looks like being the first pub in North London to sign up for 3D TV from Sky. They’re hoping the attraction of being able to watch Premiership games in 3D will help to bring in more punters as it’s a tough time for traditional pubs at the moment, with many being forced out of business. Good luck to them, let’s hope 3D has the desired effect – you can read the full story in the local paper the Islington Gazette.

You may or may not have heard of Sky Songs – it’s a music download service with 2 different monthly subscription rates, £6.49 for unlimited streaming of their 4 million-plus song bank and 1 album or 10 songs to download per month and £7.99  for the same but 1 album or 15 songs. Well, throughout March you can listen to the Sky Songs Album of the Week free as a promo accessed throug Sky Anytime. Sky Anytime, if you’re not familiar with it, is a kind-of on-demand service included with Sky+HD – press the red button and you get a selection of Sky’s top movies and TV entertainment every week including episodes of new Sky series, movies etc (as long as the content is part of a package to which you subscribe). You simply save them to your Sky+ or Sky+HD Box and watch them when you want.

The first Album of the Week in March was The Family Jewels by Marina and the Diamonds (Marina pictured – the Diamonds don’t really exist, a bit like Florence’s Machine) and there’ll be albums from Ellie Goulding and Robbie Williams featured in the March promo too, so check it out while it’s free!