A bit of background before I get to my first review.
I used to be a DishTV subscriber for a period of 6 months or so. I wasn’t thrilled with that experience at all(lousy customer support/installation). I had to move and I tried calling DishTV for about 3 weeks. I couldn’t even DishTV or their franchisees(I was given a list of’dealers’ and was asked to deal with them) to transfer my connection. So I left the dish at my old place, moved and got a connection from the local cable dealer. The cable deal wasn’t working out for me(one sports channel!) so I was keen on moving to DTH some time around Wimbledon’09(end of July I reckon).
I searched a bit and read some reviews and zeroed in on TataSky and Airtel. Airtel seemed a touch cheaper(especially the initial payment and in the number of free days that you could get) and was offering a few more channels but going with them meant dealing with franchisees/dealers, something I was keen to avoid after my DishTV experience.
So I decided to go with TataSky. Installation was super professional. No hassles no demands for extra payments. It was quick and efficient. I didnt’ have any problems with package management/customer support except for the fact that removing channels was a minor hassle.
Overall, I was quite happy till I started noticing these’ads’ on certain channels. They’d typically sit at the top edge of the screen and would offer you fancy prizes of all sorts if you’d only press the Red button on the Tata Sky remote. "That’s not right" was my initial thought but they weren’t particularly offensive so I let it go.
Then came the time for some tennis and cricket on Ten Sports(about 3 weeks ago) and I was appalled. You can see an annoying opaque contest offering/ad/spam literally in the middle of your Ten Sports screen that is there 24/7. What’s more, these ads flash perhaps twice every second and are dynamic - as in, the content changes twice a second or so. "Press Red!" it screams one moment before shifting to "Fly to SriLanka" or "Win a pony!" or something else that’s annoying and horrendously inane and intrusive at the same timee.
Imagine trying to follow a tiny tennis ball(US Open’09 is on!) with a red ad flashing in your face in the middle of the screen. Not fun and completely unethical IMHO!
I’ve tried calling their customer support several times. They are unfailingly polite and have promised to do something about it. I’m not holding my breath though. I plan on going back to my old cable dealer if this is not sorted out by the time this weekend rolls around.
If Ten Sports doesn’t float your boat or if ads are a welcome sight to your eyes, then Tata Sky might not be a bad option for you. I might be willing to stick to Tata Sky for the long haul if the ads go away but unfortunately they completely ruin my viewing experience at the moment.