Foxtel’s New Prices And New Channels Kick In Today

With the news that Foxtel is keeping its exclusive stranglehold on amazing shows like Game Of Thrones for at least another year, you might find yourself considering getting a subscription for the next 12 months. Thankfully, Foxtel just lowered its prices and opened a new channel that lets you binge watch a tonne of old content from HBO.

Foxtel’s new $25 entry price went live today, as well as the new Box Sets channel for those wanting to catch up on old seasons of their favourite show.

It starts with the Entertainment package, which features channels like Lifestyle, Fox8, MTV, BBC UKTV, Arena, Sky News and Sky News Business. From there, you bolt on additional packages.

The coveted Sports package — regarded as Foxtel’s crown jewel — will cost $25 per month extra, and include six Fox Sports channels, two ESPN channels, FOX Footy and Euro Sport.

Entertainment Plus is an extra $10 per month and includes channels like Comedy, SyFy, Style, TLC, E!, A&E, Food, Lifestyle Home and Lifestyle You.

The Movies channel is an extra $20 per month and bundles in nine genre-specific movie channels, while a Docos package featuring 10 Discovery and History channel properties will cost an extra $10 per month.

The Kids package is also $10 per month, while a new Drama tier featuring Showcase (for HBO shows), BBC First, 13th Street, FX, SoHo and the new Boxsets channel will run you $20 per month.

HD will cost you an extra $10 per month.

All up, if you want every single package and HD, Foxtel will bundle it all up for $134 per month.

The new Essentials package includes channels that previously required additional packages to receive. Disney Junior, Nick Jr., TVN, V Hits, MTV Music and MTV Dance have been added to the entry-level offering.

At the same time, however, Foxtel has moved some channels out of its Essentials (basic) package, including FX and SoHo (now included in the $20 Drama package), Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon (now in the $10 kids package).

Here’s a full list of the pricing and the channels on offer.

Click to enlarge…

The new pricing comes into effect from 3 November. Foxtel is also working on putting the finishing touches to its new iQ3 box for release later on in the year.

The new channel pricing is meant to pave the way for what Foxtel is calling its “triple-play” strategy, which will see it offer TV, broadband and home phone packages to customers before the end of the year.

Foxtel BoxSets Channel

As part of the new pricing, Foxtel is introducing a channel called BoxSets.

It’s a channel dedicated to those who love to binge watch but don’t want to go out and buy the DVDs or stream them from a Google or Apple online store.

It offers Foxtel’s Complete Season offerings to customers in one big chunk so you can get your binge-watch on.

At launch, BoxSets will carry:

Game of Thrones – Seasons 1-4
The Sopranos – Seasons 1-6
Big Love – Seasons 1-5
The Newsroom – Seasons 1-2
Rome – Seasons 1-2
Band of Brothers
Entourage – Seasons 1-8
Wentworth – Seasons 1-2

Those will be supplemented by on-demand content including:

Getting On
Looking – Season 1
Girls – Seasons 1-3
Angels in America

Foxtel announced at its up-fronts event last week that HBO’s shows would aired exclusively on the pay TV network in 2015. Here’s the company’s statement:

The deal ensures showcase, the Home of HBO will continue to bring subscribers a host of HBO content including Game of Thrones, True Detective, Girls, The Leftovers, Looking and many others.

That means all your favourite shows will still be tough to get access to unless you have a Foxtel subscription, either via a set-top box or its standalone Play subscription service.

Foxtel’s exclusive arrangement with HBO made the US network’s shows some of the most pirated on the planet thanks to content hungry Australians looking to watch the show on their terms rather than those of a pay TV provider.


Is this new pricing enough to get you to switch onto Foxtel? Tell us in the comments what you want from your pay TV packages!