Sky price

[reggaereggae]

Judging by the stories here; and one I read on the paper about a guy who they wouldnt let cancel and had to be 96 minutes on the line, that Sky are losing a lot of subscribers.

I don't think they envisaged BT sport and all the internet film providers like Netflix etc and didn't see their throne threatened ESP after Setanta tanked.

I can see some big production and human resource changes happening. It seems like the commercial model isn't working any more.

In addition all these sudden PPVs reek of getting more revenue in.

[JimJim2009]

If sky sports kick boxing into touch I hope fwank is big enough to welcome Eddie to BN with open arms.

[reggaereggae]

Judging by the stories here; and one I read on the paper about a guy who they wouldnt let cancel and had to be 96 minutes on the line, that Sky are losing a lot of subscribers.

I don't think they envisaged BT sport and all the internet film providers like Netflix etc and didn't see their throne threatened ESP after Setanta tanked.

I can see some big production and human resource changes happening. It seems like the commercial model isn't working any more.

In addition all these sudden PPVs reek of getting more revenue in.

Having said that, I just saw this article. Shows what I know, bit I guess it shows their 'customer retention' strategy is working

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/busi ... 92063.html

[Parson Cross]

Sky will be taken over shortly.
Watch this space.

[whiskey]

Judging by the stories here; and one I read on the paper about a guy who they wouldnt let cancel and had to be 96 minutes on the line, that Sky are losing a lot of subscribers.

I don't think they envisaged BT sport and all the internet film providers like Netflix etc and didn't see their throne threatened ESP after Setanta tanked.

I can see some big production and human resource changes happening. It seems like the commercial model isn't working any more.

In addition all these sudden PPVs reek of getting more revenue in.

Having said that, I just saw this article. Shows what I know, bit I guess it shows their 'customer retention' strategy is working

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/busi ... 92063.html

Take that "good news" share price article with a massive pinch of salt.

5 years ago, Sky shares were £6.30 and are £11.00 today.

5 years ago Netflix shares were $63.00 and today are a whopping $560.00

Financial bulls are forecasting Netflix will bust through the $900 a share in 12 months, if their massive international roll-out continues to new countries such as Australia, Africa, Asia etc.

Do you think little Sky will pick up the UK rights to American TV shows, when Netflix will do an international deal to carry them for 25x the overall money ? without that they will be left with their own proprietary sports (of which BT is taking off them at the moment) and not much else.

Sky are a broker, they buy the rights to stuff - and if a big gun comes in and wants to do a global deal with a studio like ANC (breaking bad) then that's who will be showing it. No different to fights, previously they'd often ignore international fights completely (Pacquiao Morales rematch for one off the top of my head) and then pick up the rights to other stuff that might be a fight for a brit some day - then when B0xntion emerged, suddenly there was competition from a hungry rival, so fights they thought they would get easily, they were suddenly having to campaign hard for and paying more money for.

Their install base is shrinking, as the younger generation is not seeing the value or wanting to commit huge chunks of money on 18 month contracts.

This retention 'good news' is just them slashing their greedy prices in desperation to hang on to customers.

People would leave and then come back, because all they had was Freeview as alternative - but now with TV boxes netflix, Prime etc (not forgetting KODI) and now people do actually have a choice, and it's a fraction of the price for the whole family. Greedy sky even charge for HD and Sky go for multiple viewers - netflix has full HD, 4K on some shows and multiple people can use account on different devices. It's just pure greed by Murdoch.

[Parson Cross]

I didn't realise until recently that the biggest rivals to Sky for the footie were Al Jazeera TV.
Sky will hook up with a Telecoms firm soon.

[danamba7]

Hate Sky. Unfortunately I do pay for Sky Sports through Virgin so I'm part of the problem but very close to cancelling.

The fact that they can bid so much money for premier league rights and then pass the cost on to their customers, even though no one had any say in how much they bid, is an absolute joke. I've seen a few posts from Gomez on this thread and previous ones claiming that the Sky model of TV hasn't got long left, I'm hoping the day Sky crumbles comes sooner rather than later.

[Parson Cross]

Gomez has got it bang in the button - and Sky know it.
They will get sucked up by a major telecoms firm.

[whiskey]

Timing is everything.

The reality is that years ago, a little bloke called the "IT manager" in a large fleet street newspaper said that they should look to have an online presence, that eventually the Internet would be the go-to source for breaking news. That people wouldn't wait 24hours until the tired old printers had churned out the newspapers through the night and hit the stands the next day.

That guy was laughed out of the building, as the know-it-alls said it could never happen. Fast forward from 2005 to 2015 and you can see that news is consumed digitally and instantly, and that print press is dying a rapid death, with the monthly magazines soon to follow. Middle-men likes newsagents and shops take their slice of the sale and ultimately, the end consumer pays over the odds.

The same is following suit with television. Large broadcasting corporations (middle men) very rarely produce their own shows. Only sports which they have won the rights for are televised from their own proprietary studios and camera rigs. Even their news crews are subcontracted out to local guys with a camera to cover for them. All of their other content is bought in. The movies, the TV shows are all purchased to be shown for a set period of time until their rights expire.

In the UK there are very few that would buy the rights to these shows / movies. The large studios like Disney, ANC, History etc had very little choice on the isles on whom they could sell their rights to.

Now the internet is in full force, we are seeing geographic barriers broken down. No longer the people that own the TV transmitters on the hill calling the shots, no longer is the owner of the satellite that points to our island, as the man who is king of UK television. The Internet has made that local infrastructure completely irrelevant. Your internet provider is the new battleground, hence BT making a huge push in the last 18 months from nowhere.

Powerhouses like Netflix can do a deal with Disney to carry their movies in every country they operate. Disney can make one solitary deal with one buyer, to take on their production worldwide. By return the powerhouse can make strict terms that other stations in the countries they cover, cannot broadcast that same movie in competition to them.

In the past, the "paid" subscriptions by Sky / Virgin justified their monthly fees by offering premium content over freeview channels that would show old shows and old movies. The problem is that their prices soared as their greed increased. People buy it begrudgingly nowadays, which means the punter has no brand loyalty to them. Infact many deeply resent them nowadays. And that premium content they traded on, will shift to cheaper outlets at the UK consumer's fingertips. BT jumping in for football rights, is just the tip of the iceberg for now.

They tried to hop onto the internet boom with Now TV, but their offering is v.poor. It crashes, has poor resolution and limited depth of content. It's clunky and vastly overpriced. In a nutshell, it's not cottoned on like the Internet giants. Their sky go is a shoddy , flaky and badly developed piece of software too. It's like comparing Nokia to Apple - they have not re-invested and pushed forward television, instead they have trousered the money and got lazy, hence being in this position.

I would not be surprised if analysts advised them to spin off right now to a giant who needs to add a live sports division to their growing internet television offering.

Times are changing fast. Ebay has recently spun off Paypal, knowing full well that Apple Pay and other transaction methods are inbound. But that's another tech story.

[Manchester Massive]

You seem well informed on this Gomez, are you involved in the sector?

[Parson Cross]

Gomez
You know much about Vivendi ?

[whiskey]

Gomez
You know much about Vivendi ?

I heard the rumours, but dont think it'll happen.

It would be an asinine move for Vivendi to aquire Sky. they've just restructured their TV portfolio and gone from net debt in double figure billions to around a +4 billion cash position.

Exposure to a shrinking/aging satellite PPV model would be met with massive resistance. Their shares have flatlined for many years and only just began creeping. Besides, it would pull onboard Sky's own -£5b debt from their German and Italian sky acquisitions.

It's likely a red herring. If they do go forward and buy Sky, then they will sink and take it with them imo.

[whiskey]

You seem well informed on this Gomez, are you involved in the sector?

I invest my savings into tech shares and have my finger rammed into vein, let alone on the pulse.

If you have any spare money , say laying around doing nothing in an ISA, then you can making reasonable profit from shifting it into a share scheme ISA. All Internet bank accounts offer it.

A standard ISA makes around .5% interest , so when matched against inflation, it's actually worth less per year. Whereas picking the right shares can yield 10-20% a year. That's big, safe companies. If you lump on an emerging company, you can double your money in two years.

I put £X into DIS (Disney) about 2 years ago and it's now increased 50% You can do it too. With them owning Marvel, Pixar and now Star Wars, it'll likely go up more over the next two years as new Toy Story, Avengers and Star Wars movies emerge. That's in addition to their own characters and Frozen 2 on its way. But that's just one media company. There are loads of them, you just need to have a quid that you can invest and ignore for a year or two. And obviously pick the right stocks.

I mostly read up on tech and hence that's why I probably come across as more informed in that area. But it's not conjecture, you can see exactly that this is all unfolding. Sat boxes will be like VHS players in just a couple of years from now.

[ajwesty13]

I got HD, skysports, everything apart from movies and BT, pay line rental, and i pay £89.25 not including the new price .. F**king outrageous

[JimJim2009]

Gomez I love reading your posts, they are fascinating. Can I ask you something ? Your description of how sky is, is engrossing. It's like the titanic heading towards the iceberg in a way. But, in fairness, sky cannot be full of dumb idiots blind to the changes in technology and the emerging competition so I guess my question is, do you think they know, and if so do you think they can do anything about it ? If you were put in charge what would you do ?

[whiskey]

Gomez I love reading your posts, they are fascinating. Can I ask you something ? Your description of how sky is, is engrossing. It's like the titanic heading towards the iceberg in a way. But, in fairness, sky cannot be full of dumb idiots blind to the changes in technology and the emerging competition so I guess my question is, do you think they know, and if so do you think they can do anything about it ? If you were put in charge what would you do ?

Being honest mate, I would sell it right now.

To give you another media analogy, It's like owning a successful chain of newsagents. Sure, they might profitable today - but what about the future?

Print press is shrinking , subscriptions can cut you out and digital media is speeding up the death - and ultimately, that business model is sinking fast. Just because something was successful once, doesn't mean it will last for ever.

Throw in the fact that bigger corporations like supermarkets (Netflix etc) can also offer your services for cheaper, and suddenly the future is not rosy.

Now consider that Sky is a newsagent of television, facing emerging media technology that is better, more accessible and most of all cheaper - and suddenly things don't look bright. The new technology doesnt require a dish or a box, just an Internet connection. It doesn't even need a television if you think about it. Kids on iPads, teenagers on games consoles, mobile phones. How can their archaic dish + box array reach as many punters in the forthcoming years? it cannot. Throw in the costly network of vans and intallation / service engineers that attend faults, when the wind or birds knock your dish out of alignment? even heavy rain can send your signal fuzzy.

You see a newsagent (like Sky) doesn't sell proprietary products. The content on their shelves (or channels) is made by others. OK magazine, Hello - all made by publishers and not the newsagent. They are just the broker, the middle man taking their slice for stocking it for you.

Why pay more when you can buy that content elsewhere for cheaper, that's how consumer's minds work. People dont have an allegiance to Tesco, if they like coco pops and they can buy them cheaper elsewhere, then they will. It's all about the product not the broker. McDonalds are different to Tesco, in the sense thats it is their own proprietary product, you can't get it anywhere else. When a business is not making the goods themselves, then they can go under.

Now consider a bigger fish is going to come in, and take those magazine publications away from you - to outbid you and sell them cheaper than you. Whilst putting in place stipulations that they have the rights, and therefore you cannot also sell those products - you are screwed.

Sky differ very slightly in the sense that they do have a proprietary product - their sports offering. But is that safe and secure from the competition? well recent months prove it is not. There are no guarantees that they will win the next bidding rights. So deep down, not even that is a failsafe proprietary offering that sets them apart and adds value to their worth.

Murdoch is looking to offload his stake in Sky, so when you say 'dumb blind idiots' then clearly he see's the future too. He knows the ride is coming to an end. A company's value is intrinsically linked to its installed customer base, how many reoccurring-payment customers it has. Hence why it's hell bent on retention at all costs. Because it reached saturation a couple of years ago, and if figures show customers are leaving the service in droves, it will drive down their value as a business to potential buyers. It's bailing out water. They have no plans or new technology coming out, no big announcements. Not making their own shows or anything - in stark difference to Netflix, with their own range of big hit shows like Better Call Saul, Daredevil, House of Cards. Not only are they buying everyone's content, they are making their own and building-in value to their services. You wont find the shows anywhere else, unlike their rivals in this country, where you can get everything else on iplayer a blu ray or whatever. Only the sports is their own product (for now). As that customer base shrinks and moves elsewhere, so will their bidding power as the money isn't rolling in to make it work. Now is the time to sell it.

[Boxerbeetle]

Sky was built on its Premier League coverage. If it loses that, it's fucked.

[rossij8]

Great post Gomez

I had a letter today saying my bill is going up by £4

Enough is enough, I'm going to cancel and give 30 days notice, hold my ground and get a discount

[whiskey]

Rossi, they might offer you a discount but will try locking you in for a long contract. If that suits you then great. But personally I think even half price it's too much compared to the competition.

You can get 30 days free trial with Netflix , 30 days free trial of Amazon Prime and 30 days free trial of Now TV.

That's 3 months of free shows & movies. You can watch on any smart tv, console, stream box etc.

Throw in BBC, ITV, Channel 5, C4 etc and what exactly will you miss? Not much.

[Stuarty]

I have just recently cancelled Sky sports on my Virgin account. Far too expensive and not enough boxing on to justify paying the daft fees! I can take or leave the football. If there's boxing on I'll watch it on my brothers SkyGo. I still pay for BN through Virgin (no sub fee). I switched from Sky to Virgin over a year ago. Sky customer service is terrible!

[danamba7]

Rossi, they might offer you a discount but will try locking you in for a long contract. If that suits you then great. But personally I think even half price it's too much compared to the competition.

You can get 30 days free trial with Netflix , 30 days free trial of Amazon Prime and 30 days free trial of Now TV.

That's 3 months of free shows & movies. You can watch on any smart tv, console, stream box etc.

Throw in BBC, ITV, Channel 5, C4 etc and what exactly will you miss? Not much.

Good point. And with a family of 4 for example, all with different email addresses, you could get a years free TV.

If only Netflix had some kind of sports offering it would become the perfect package. Great TV, decent films and hopefully in the future, great sport.

Do you know much about the state of Virgin Media/Tivo? I quite like the smart box but it's still massively expensive for what you get.

Very interesting posts by the way.

[whiskey]

Good point. And with a family of 4 for example, all with different email addresses, you could get a years free TV.

If only Netflix had some kind of sports offering it would become the perfect package. Great TV, decent films and hopefully in the future, great sport.

Do you know much about the state of Virgin Media/Tivo? I quite like the smart box but it's still massively expensive for what you get.

Very interesting posts by the way.

I've got a virgin / tivo box in my home cinema set-up . The remote is the biggest, ugliest thing (worse than the sky remote) and the user interface is slow and the picture quality is very mediocre indeed, on account of them taking the original Sky Sports Mpeg4 and squashing it down to Mpeg2.

The picture is very soft for HD and overly bright and vivid. A friend who works for Virgin says most of his call-outs are for Tivos and they are god awful. I fully agree with him.

I would only have virgin TV if they happened to have the fastest broadband in my area. I would not choose it over Sky through choice, because whilst being slightly cheaper - Sky's pciture quality is miles better, the audio encoding is a notch above and the overall user menu is very slick in comparison.

In closing, Virgin TV is a total dog.... but their firbe broadband is rapid, and they bundle in the TV as part of your monthly cost. So you have to consider it in that sense, rather than as a stand alone TV offering.

[danamba7]

Good point. And with a family of 4 for example, all with different email addresses, you could get a years free TV.

If only Netflix had some kind of sports offering it would become the perfect package. Great TV, decent films and hopefully in the future, great sport.

Do you know much about the state of Virgin Media/Tivo? I quite like the smart box but it's still massively expensive for what you get.

Very interesting posts by the way.

I've got a virgin / tivo box in my home cinema set-up . The remote is the biggest, ugliest thing (worse than the sky remote) and the user interface is slow and the picture quality is very mediocre indeed, on account of them taking the original Sky Sports Mpeg4 and squashing it down to Mpeg2.

The picture is very soft for HD and overly bright and vivid. A friend who works for Virgin says most of his call-outs are for Tivos and they are god awful. I fully agree with him.

I would only have virgin TV if they happened to have the fastest broadband in my area. I would not choose it over Sky through choice, because whilst being slightly cheaper - Sky's pciture quality is miles better, the audio encoding is a notch above and the overall user menu is very slick in comparison.

In closing, Virgin TV is a total dog.... but their firbe broadband is rapid, and they bundle in the TV as part of your monthly cost. So you have to consider it in that sense, rather than as a stand alone TV offering.

Fair dos. To be fair, I rarely notice picture quality unless it's absolutely terrible. Similarly to people moaning about IFL not shooting in HD, it really doesn't bother me. Must have poor eyesight! I hope things change very soon though as currently I'm not happy with what I'm paying but I can't just cancel and move to Netflix as there's no sport. Money-wise, I wish I wasn't into sport as it would save me about £50 a month.

[rossij8]

Rossi, they might offer you a discount but will try locking you in for a long contract. If that suits you then great. But personally I think even half price it's too much compared to the competition.

You can get 30 days free trial with Netflix , 30 days free trial of Amazon Prime and 30 days free trial of Now TV.

That's 3 months of free shows & movies. You can watch on any smart tv, console, stream box etc.

Throw in BBC, ITV, Channel 5, C4 etc and what exactly will you miss? Not much.

thanks Gomez

I already have Netflix, BN HD, Xbox Live, and pay £71.50 for sky

Im currently streamlining all my outgoings - needs to be done sometimes - I have changed my house and contents insurance from £40 to £10 a month by just changing supplier after 10 years (loyalty means nothing)

Virgin are really good for broadband - I pay £31 a month for up to 100mb (no landline) and consistently get 107mbs

[MarkMcBurney]

I cancelled Sky in the wake of the Bellew/Cleverly farce, and called this week to see about re-joining if I could get the right deal.

After about half an hour on the phone, I ended up with the full TV package (movies, sports, HD etc) for £45 a month, for 12 months, which is about a 45% discount on the new monthly cost of £75 from June, so I was happy with that.

You'll get a decent deal if you're ok to haggle and hold firm.