Believe in Blather

For an organisation purporting to be a communications company, Sky appear to have a poor grasp of the working of the Telephone Preference Service, a scheme that allows you to opt out of receiving marketing telephone calls, the audio equivalent of junk mail but without the occasional benefit of a free pen or handy blank envelope to write a shopping list or to do list on.

One of the consequences of working at home is that you are at home during the day.  If you watch television you will know that the sort of adverts aimed at the at home during the day demographic are heavily skewed towards health plans for the elderly, or sedate cruising, the holiday equivalent of two spoonfuls of Benzedrine stirred gently into your Horlicks.  It also means that marketing people call you and you pick up the ‘phone because you think it might be something important, or at least not something that is either going to sap your will to live, descend into a blazing row, or both.

I don’t have Sky for a number of reasons, some practical, some principled.  For instance, I don’t enjoy association football very much, but if I am interested in knowing how a match is going, I’ll tune into Radio 5.  I also don’t need any more encouragement to watch any more television.  My sporting needs are well catered for via the wireless, thanks to Test Match Special, and my drama needs are taken care of thanks to box sets and binging.

I also don’t like Murdoch products, and although I have not seen Sky programming, I have no reason to think that his television programmes would be any different to his newspapers.

Finally, I don’t like the way in which Sky’s commercialisation of football and sport generally has eroded the social value it has, with kick off times for footie matches now arranged around the teevee schedule.  Football matches kick off at 3:00 on a Saturday.  This gives the fans time to get to the venue from wherever, have a pie, watch the match, and get home.  A footie match that finishes at 9:00 at night is bugger all use to anyone facing a five hour journey home.  Likewise, test cricket should be on BBC 2.  Like a nuclear deterrent, I might not ever use it, but it’s bloody good to know it’s there if necessary, for instance to be deployed during summer holidays in England.

The lad who called me was obviously working off a script, and the script included the many, many objections that I have to Murdoch in general and Sky in particular.

I was told that Murdoch does not own Sky, or much of it, the details were unclear, anymore.  Presumably the people that own the controlling interests are not megalomaniac despots, although if this is indeed the case I am baffled as to why and how they could acquire a controlling interest in a global communications company.

The lad extolled the virtues of the product and the programmes.  Fair play to him he did a good job.

However, what he was doing was arguing with me.  He just would not take no for an answer as he more of less rebutted or corrected the many objections I trotted out as to why I didn’t want Sky.

Eventually, I just went nuclear.  I don’t want Sky, I said, because ‘A Game of Thrones’ is one of my favourite books, and the television adaptation is poor by comparison.

Silence in the call centre.  Now, it is true that GoT the teevee show is great, I am not denying that.  Got the box set, love it.  But it is not as good as the books.  Moreover, I resent the hell out of its popularity.  Before the teevee adaptation, if you saw a stranger reading A Game of Thrones you could strike up a conversation with them.  In England.

There was no rebuttal.  Sky Lad must have known that for somebody to say something so provocative meant that there was no hope of selling the package.

Also, and I am not an expert, but having an argument with a prospective customer is unlikely to seal the deal.