With Black Friday almost upon us, Sky’s streaming service – NOW (formerly known as NOW TV), is joining the party with massive discounts on ALL the plans (including sports) – but with one big catch.
From now until November 28, 2023, you can get 50% off the Entertainment membership, the Entertainment + Cinema memberships, and the Sky Sports membership.
So, for example, the Entertainment membership is just £4.99/month instead of £9.99/month, and the Sports plan is just £17.49/month instead of £34.99/month (see all the options – including the ‘Mega Bundle‘ – below).
The main caveat, however, is that this offer comes with a minimum term of six months.
That means that even though NOW has typically been a no-contract streaming option for Sky’s TV channels – you’ll need to sign a semi-long-term contract for these Black Friday discounts.
During those 6 months, you’ll keep paying the discounted price – and once the 6 months are up, you can cancel your subscription, or let it renew at the regular, full price of your chosen membership.
These minimum-term contracts have always been quite common on Sky’s other services – such as Sky Q – and even Sky Stream and Sky Glass have optional long-term contract discounts.
Earlier this year, NOW started offering these types of long-term discounts as well – and the trend continues with the new Black Friday offers.
Of course, you can still sign up to NOW with the full flexibility of paying monthly and cancelling at any point – but then, you won’t get any of the discounts.
NOW is Sky’s long-running standalone streaming service that normally doesn’t mandate a long-term contract and works as an app on many supported devices.
Last year, Sky also launched its Sky Stream box, which is also a streaming service from Sky – but one that only works with the Sky Stream puck, and has a different interface (and pricing scheme) – See our Sky Stream VS NOW comparison.
NOW offers three main content packages (“memberships”):
- NOW Entertainment, normally at £9.99/m, with Sky’s TV channels, including Sky Atlantic, and content for kids.
- NOW Cinema, normally at £9.99/month. Identical to the Sky Cinema plan on Sky, with new blockbusters and back-catalogue films.
- NOW Sky Sports, normally at £34.99/month. Almost identical to Sky Sports on Sky (with Racing, Mix and News being part of this membership instead of Entertainment).
Then there’s NOW Boost, which costs £6/month. It’s an add-on, which adds Full HD (1080p) video quality, Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, no adverts (for on-demand content – you’ll still see adverts on Sky’s live channels), and the ability to stream on up to 3 devices at the same time (instead of just one).
NOW is available on a wide range of streaming devices, including Amazon’s Fire TV, Roku, Google’s Chromecast, mobile phones, tablets and more (see our full NOW review).
NOW TV’s Black Friday Offers: Get 50% Off
For Black Friday 2023, NOW is offering 50% discounts on ALL of its memberships (well, except Cinema if you want it standalone) – if you’re willing to sign the 6-month contract.
So, unlike NOW’s deals of the past – those six months are not UP TO six months. Instead, they’re a minimum term – which means you’re bound to those plans for six months.
You can technically cancel before the six months are up – but the cancellation will only take effect when your minimum term is over.
The discounts offered are:
NOW Entertainment 6 Month Saver: Get it for £4.99/month (instead of £9.99/month) for six months.
NOW Entertainment & Cinema: Get both plans together for £9.95/month (instead of £19.98) for six months.
NOW Sports: Get it for £17.49/month (instead of £34.99/month) for six month.
The Mega Bundle: Want everything? Get Entertainment, Cinema and Sports for £27/month (instead of £54.94), for six months.
According to NOW, these offers are only for NEW subscribers.
That usually means you can’t use them if you currently have an active NOW subscription – but if you were a member in the past and have since cancelled, these might still work for you.
Along with these offers, you also get a 30-day free trial of NOW Boost – which will then renew at its normal £6/month price – but you CAN cancel Boost before those 30 days are up, as it’s not a part of the six-month minimum term.
In fact, be careful with Boost – I often get complaints from readers who don’t notice that ‘Boost’ is just a free limited-time trial – and are then surprised to be billed for it once the trial is over (a month in this case).
So if you DON’T want Boost (which gives you Full HD streaming and a few other benefits), be sure to cancel it before the first month is up.
Are These Good Deals?
The whole point of cord cutting and streaming TV, in my eyes, is the flexibility that you get – subscribe to Netflix for a couple of months, then cancel and switch to Prime Video, then get a month of NOW to watch that one show you’re interested in… and when you go on holiday, or you’re having rough financial times – just cancel everything.
Long-term contracts with minimum terms take away that flexibility.
However, if you’re definitely planning to be a NOW subscriber for six months or more (for Entertainment, Cinema or Sports) – then you might as well subscribe to them at the discounted price.
As for the 50% off Black Friday discount itself – these are some of the lowest prices we’ve seen for NOW, with one important caveat – customers who were subscribed in the past and cancelled, often get even better offers from NOW (usually by e-mail).
For example, one of our readers reported getting a £2.99/month Entertainment Membership for six months, and I often see a £1/month offer (for three months) for either Entertainment or Cinema – but those offers are not available to everyone.