KEY POINTS:
Sky Television promised greater choice but customers say it has delivered fewer options for more money.
The broadcaster has come under fire from disgruntled customers who are unimpressed with the network's new film scheduling system.
The company recently added a new movie channel, Sky Movies Great, and adjusted the scheduling system used on Sky Movies 1 and 2.
Sky Movies 2 now broadcasts the same programme line-up as Sky Movies 1, with a two-hour delay.
"It's just ridiculous," said subscriber Marc Dobbing. "They've put the prices up and it's like we've lost a channel and gained half a one."
The subscription fee for movies has increased from $18.63 to $19.76 a month, a rise of 6 per cent.
Last month, Sky director of entertainment Travis Dunbar said the new channel would offer greater choice to its customers.
But it appears Sky customers are failing to see an improvement.
"We're now watching fewer movies on more channels," said Anthony Collins of Tauranga, who contacted the Herald yesterday to express his annoyance.
"I called their customer services team and they said the system had changed. They called it multiplexing and said it followed an overseas trend."
Sky director of communications Tony O'Brien denied the system had changed.
"We launched our second movie channel in September 1999 and that was called Sky Movie Max. We later rebranded it as Sky Movies 2 but it has always been time-shifted. It has always been Sky Movies 1 on a delay.
"They may have adjusted the timing of the time-shifting but in terms of the product there is no difference."
However, a quick study of Sky Watch magazine shows that although the total number of films screening on Sky this month has not decreased, the number of films available on any given day has decreased dramatically.
On Saturday, May 12, there were 23 films broadcast on the two Sky Movies channels.
Today, Saturday, July 14, there will be 14 films broadcast on the three Sky Movies channels, several of which will be repeated throughout the day.
"Sky Movies weren't great anyway, but now they're even worse," said Mr Dobbing.
Mr Collins agreed: "There's no competition. It's not like we can go somewhere else and voice our dissatisfaction. It's not on."
