We're more likely to change our partner than our TV service, but if you actually managed to divorce yourself from your Sky subscription you could save literally hundreds of pounds a year and still see 99% of the programmes you love.
More, you can keep all the elements you love from your Sky or Virgin box – from series link, to pausing live TV and fast forwarding the ads – without having to pay any subscription fees at all.
Even if you're unwilling to give up on a series that's only available on pay TV, there are options available that let you watch that, without being tied into a £60-a-month contract.

Sky – the facts



Kit Harrington as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones - the 368th most-watched show on Sky and ONLY Sky exclusive in the top 1,000 

Figures from Freesat show that of the 1,000 most-watched shows by Sky subscribers last year, 99% were available on free-to-air television.
In fact, of the 78 shows that made up the top 1,000 most-watched broadcasts, the highest ranked Sky-only programme came in at 368.
The top ten shows by viewing figures were
  1. The Great British Bake Off
  2. Eastenders
  3. New Year’s Eve Fireworks
  4. The Voice UK
  5. Mrs Brown’s Boys
  6. Strictly Come Dancing
  7. Britain’s Got Talent
  8. I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
  9. Queen and Adam Lambert’s Rock Big Ben Live
  10. Call the Midwife
“It’s clear from this data that the nation has a big appetite for the great programming that free-to-air offers, even those pay-TV customers forking out on pricey subscriptions,” said Freesat spokeswoman Jennifer Elworthy.
But despite this, people just keep paying, with the average pay-TV subscriber shelling out £39 a month on TV subscriptions and some paying up to £840 a year for them.
Research from Freeview shows millions of us have NEVER switched pay TV providers.

The TV deals that don't cost the earth




While the most popular, Sky, Virgin and BT might not always be the best value TV deals.
So here are your options if you want to pay less for your TV:

Pay nothing

Freeview offers a huge selection of channels for no cost at all . There are 13 HD channels, 58 entertainment channels, 5 children's channels, 7 news channels and a load more regional, local and radio channels. Any digital TV should already be able to receive all these channels at no cost at all (bar your TV licence).
With the addition of a freeview plus box, you can pause, rewind and record live TV as well as setting a planner and series link just like you would with a Sky or Virgin plus box.
The box costs less than £100 and once it's yours you need to pay nothing else to access all the TV mentioned above.

Just pay for a box (no subscription)




If that's not enough for you, you can get even more with Freesat .
From less than £50 you can get access to satellite TV, with more than 200 channels and on-demand TV from the likes of the BBC and ITV.
Just like with Freeview, if you get the right box you can also pause, rewind and record live TV and set up a TV planner and series links.

Just the content




Did you know with a simple £30 dongle or plug in smart box you can beam content from your laptop to your TV - or even connect straight to the internet - meaning you can get iPlayer, YouTube and more from your phone, laptop or tablet straight to your TV.
More, that means any online video service you sign up to can be watched on the TV – so you can get access to movies, TV shows and more from the likes of Netflix or Amazon Prime .
That means, from £5.99 a month plus a one off charge for a dongle, you effectively have Sky Movies on Demand as well as a host of TV shows.
CLICK TO PLAY

NowTV




If you want access to the likes of Sky One, Sky Atlantic and the all important sports, then NowTV will let you in for a fraction of the cost .
There are 13 channels you won't find on Freeview (shown above) that you can gain access to for £6.99 a month (or less in a package deal), you can get Sky Movies for £9.99 a month (and switch it on or off as you like, rather than be tied in to a contract) or grab the latest football games with all seven Sky Sports Channels for £6.99 for a day – alternatively you can get a week or month-long pass for more , there's currently a deal letting you see a single game, or a week, for one-off fees .
Add it all up and you're not saving a lot, but the advantage is you aren't tied into a contract and don't pay for anything you don't want.
A NowTV box costs just £14.99, and can be bundled in with some of the other offers for a discount, and it also lets you catch up on shows with access to iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD and Demand 5.

Bundle




The final way to save on TV subscriptions is to wrap them into a bundle with other services .
Virgin, Sky and BT all let you combine phone, internet and TV deals into combination packages.
That means, if you're happy to combine two providers, you can get broadband and TV from Talktalk for £10 a month , BT (including sport) for £12.50 a month at the moment , with Virgin media you can get broadband, TV (including some Sky channels) and even a mobile SIM card thrown in with bigger discounts the more you buy while Sky offers free broadband for a year with its TV packages, letting you save there if not on TV.