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Parting shot: my messy breakup with Foxtel

Foxtel, I’m leaving you.

It’s not you, it’s me. No, wait, it is you.

You’re so prohibitive. If I want to watch one thing, you exclude another. You won’t let me select individual channels and pay an appropriate fee for the services I use.

Instead, you charge top dollar for a subscription package that includes Peruvian llama races, documentaries on how to grow basil in a spaceship and other obscure programmes I will never watch. All so I can access the three or four channels I actually enjoy.

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Then there’s the whopping $100 monthly fee on your complete service. Even then, you attempt to entice me with pay-per-view extras and movie subscriptions.

Presto for $20 a month? Gold-digger!

It’s time to put myself back on the market. And I’m hot property.

I’ve been on a date with Netflix, and she’s thinking about moving to Australia to be with me forever. Quickflix has been sending me love letters. I’ve been flirting with Chromecast and a friend told me Apple TV has a thing for me.

It’s not like you need my love anyway. You have 2.6 million other admirers trapped under your thumb in lock-in contracts.

newdaily_150814_foxtel_leadThings haven’t been the same since the Game of Thrones debacle. You know how much I love that series, but you refused to make it easy for me.

After navigating the ‘upgrade your package’ minefield, emerging with a migraine and dozens of superfluous channels, I finally discovered it would cost me a cool $25 a month extra for that one hour of pleasure per week. I’m not made of money.

We see the same friends every day: Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj; Homer and Marge; Frasier; Jerry, George and Elaine.

But I need some spontaneity in my life. I want to meet other people. Don’t even think of suggesting we catch up with Will and Grace again!

Please don’t cry – it wasn’t all bad. We had some good times, didn’t we?

Remember cuddling up together with a glass of red on a chilly winter evening to watch the Super Rugby? What about when you used to get a bit naughty and wake me up on a work night to watch the Test matches in South Africa? I was always tired the next day, but it was worth it.

Unfortunately, those moments were few and far between.

I can’t live like this. I’m the only one making an effort while you just take and take. Nothing you can offer me is worth $100 a month.

You’re rigid, out-dated, overpriced and so very, very boring. There are thousands who agree with me, yet only one in ten subscribers cut ties with you last year.

You call it “churn”, I call it breaking free from the shackles of a faulty, one-sided relationship.

So as I bid you adieu, I offer you this piece of advice: move with the times and don’t take us for granted.

Fail to heed this warning and you might find yourself very lonely one day.

There are plenty more TV fish in the ever-expanding digital sea.

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