Sky launch week-long Black Friday offers

Credit: chrisdorney/Shutterstock.com

It's especially popular with ISPs and online retailers, who don't have to worry about coping with crowds of bargain hungry shoppers - a concern that's led Asda, who were instrumental in bringing Black Friday to the UK, to say they won't be bothering this year.

So it's no surprise that Sky - who already have something of a talent for putting together a good deal - have joined in with a whole range of Black Friday themed offers, which will be running all this week.

A couple are aimed at new customers, with one for people looking at getting TV, and one for people interested in their broadband.

Then there are the upgrade deals for Sky's existing customers, including half price Sky Multiscreen or Sky Go Extra, or money off upgrading to the Family TV bundle.

Those interested in the deals for new customers, keep reading; existing customers can skip ahead to find out more about those upgrades.

New customer Black Friday deals

People signing up online for one of the Sky TV bundles listed below will get the choice of one of the following rewards:

• a 32-inch LG TV
• a Samsung Galaxy Tab E
• an LG Soundbar
• 10 buy and keep movies from the Sky Store
• or £100

The Movies and Sports packages are based on adding those channels to the Original TV Bundle.

People who want both the extra channel packs can take the Complete Bundle, which is based on the Family Bundle with Sky's HD pack - offering Sky Movies and Sky Sports in HD - thrown in for good measure.

There's more on what each of these bundles includes in our main review of Sky TV.

Broadband, Black Friday style

Then there's the offer being run for those looking for a new broadband provider.

As mentioned above, Sky are offering their standard unlimited broadband free for 12 months - the length of the contract - and throwing in one of the following for good measure:

• a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4
• £100 M&S or Tesco e-voucher
• or £100 prepaid MasterCard

Should this not appeal for some reason, Sky do have other offers available.

At the moment they include 12 months free broadband for people with Sky Movies, and a half price offer on their unlimited fibre broadband deal for 12 months, whether we take Sky TV or not.

What is worth bearing in mind when taking any of the deals that mention broadband is the price of Sky's line rental and phone service.

At £17.40 Sky's line rental is among the most expensive in the UK - but now Virgin Media have announced that theirs is going up to £17.99 from February, Sky's will soon be the cheapest offered by one of the Big Four.

That doesn't quite make up for the fact that they're the only one of those four - BT, Sky, TalkTalk, and Virgin - who don't offer an upfront line rental deal to bring down the equivalent monthly cost a little.

And as we reported in July, there are no longer any inclusive calls bundled with line rental. The cheapest add-on will give customers unlimited evening and weekend calls to UK landlines - and UK mobiles - for another £4 a month.

Black Friday upgrades

People who already have Sky and who might be feeling a little jealous of the goods on offer to new customers are also being offered a few perks to soothe them.

There should be one to suit most TV customers, depending on what bundle they already have.

People with the Original or Variety TV deals might want to start by looking at upgrading to the Family Bundle, which during Black Friday week comes with a £36 discount.

For people on the Variety Bundle, the discount is equivalent to being upgraded free of charge for six months.

Both they and the Original Bundle customers will get an extra 40-odd HD channels, plus access to Sky's somewhat formidable box set collection, when they upgrade; Original bundle customers will be getting another 40 or so paid for channels as well.

More screens

For those happy with the number of channels they get, but who could do with being able to see them on more than one screen at the same time, there are two, almost complimentary offers.

Sky Go Extra lets us download on demand content, including catch up shows, to up to four devices, to be watched wherever and whenever we are - or to stream live content over a data connection - for £5 a month.

For Black Friday, Sky are offering a year's subscription to Sky Go Extra for half price - that is, just £2.50 a month.

Alternatively, Sky Go Extra is included free of charge with subscriptions to Sky Multiscreen.

We look at the service, and what's involved in getting it, in more detail here - but basically for £11.25 a month, we get a second Sky+ box so we can watch any of the channels we subscribe to on a TV in another room.

For Black Friday, however, Sky are offering Multiscreen (with Sky Go Extra included as standard) at half price for 12 months.

More Black Friday offers

Sky aren't the only provider to be running some sort of Black Friday deal - but they are the first to make theirs available.

We've created a special comparison table where we'll have details of all the Black Friday deals in one place for comparison as and when customers can take advantage of them.

Meanwhile those of us locked into an existing contract, whether with Sky or another provider, and feeling somewhat left out can always try their hand at haggling to get a better deal. We've a guide explaining some of the best tactics here.