What could Sky change/improve/do better?

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#1385474 11-Sep-2015 10:04

I have Sky for sport, and i dont even watch Rugby, i have it for the American sports and it is way cheaper than buying individual subscriptions. I watch NFL. $220 a year, NBA $300 a year. Baseball $200 a year, College Football, havent found anything to watch online, All the ESPN original programming. you can buy them but they are $2-3 each and there are 5 a day i record 5 days a week so that would be $50-$60 a week . Sky is great value.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

tdgeek

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#1385477 11-Sep-2015 10:09

networkn:

Profits of a billion a year?? That isnt reality! Or correct by a wide margin. Skys subscriber numbers are high, they dont vary a huge amount. RWC is probably a minor pimple in increased numbers and will be a minor dimple when its over. I'd be happy to bet that post RWC there will not a a standard $50 deal for what you currently have. The SVOD phenomena is in its infancy, its not normal, its not standard, its techy. Ask 100 people walking the street not here

Yes Sky will have to change, no doubt. Id imnagine they will cut cost left right and centre, outsource everything, and literally have almost zero brick and mortar. And get the content fed by land based fibre that is grwoing every day. Those that need a box will have to pay for it. Over time Sky will morph from its hardware based service (box, cable, dish) to a SVOD service, with some paying a premioum for the old fashioned dish etc.

It wont happen overnight, but it will happen

My mistake, I misread the report, it's $906M of Revenue. $165M in Profit.

I'd be prepared to bet next year their revenue has dropped by 25% AT LEAST. I'm also prepared to bet that those people calling up to cancel, will be offered a deal pretty close to the $50 which include Basic, My Sky HDI, and 1 premium channel, if they sign up for 12 months. Also HD Ticket will be included.

I'll donate $100 to a (registered) charity of your choosing if both those things (or reasonably close to it) don't end up happening.

I'll also predict that John Fellett, is gone within 12 months. I suspect gone by Christmas.

Also the boost in subscriber numbers that Sky experienced this year is due to RWC, and most have been signed up on the $50 deal.

Actually I think we agree on most points, except the timeframe. I see it taking three years before there is a swing. You feel it will be post RWC.

The more I think of it, a single seperte Sport channel is the way to go. Sky can dump all sport. Of that 900 million revenue, a third goes to content, and most of that is sport. Dump sport, reduce prices, reduce costs. The Kiwi ESPN can be Skys or someone elses and its PPV only. Cost plus margin. User pays.

trig42

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#1385479 11-Sep-2015 10:16

tdgeek:
networkn:

Profits of a billion a year?? That isnt reality! Or correct by a wide margin. Skys subscriber numbers are high, they dont vary a huge amount. RWC is probably a minor pimple in increased numbers and will be a minor dimple when its over. I'd be happy to bet that post RWC there will not a a standard $50 deal for what you currently have. The SVOD phenomena is in its infancy, its not normal, its not standard, its techy. Ask 100 people walking the street not here

Yes Sky will have to change, no doubt. Id imnagine they will cut cost left right and centre, outsource everything, and literally have almost zero brick and mortar. And get the content fed by land based fibre that is grwoing every day. Those that need a box will have to pay for it. Over time Sky will morph from its hardware based service (box, cable, dish) to a SVOD service, with some paying a premioum for the old fashioned dish etc.

It wont happen overnight, but it will happen

My mistake, I misread the report, it's $906M of Revenue. $165M in Profit.

I'd be prepared to bet next year their revenue has dropped by 25% AT LEAST. I'm also prepared to bet that those people calling up to cancel, will be offered a deal pretty close to the $50 which include Basic, My Sky HDI, and 1 premium channel, if they sign up for 12 months. Also HD Ticket will be included.

I'll donate $100 to a (registered) charity of your choosing if both those things (or reasonably close to it) don't end up happening.

I'll also predict that John Fellett, is gone within 12 months. I suspect gone by Christmas.

Also the boost in subscriber numbers that Sky experienced this year is due to RWC, and most have been signed up on the $50 deal.

Actually I think we agree on most points, except the timeframe. I see it taking three years before there is a swing. You feel it will be post RWC.

The more I think of it, a single seperte Sport channel is the way to go. Sky can dump all sport. Of that 900 million revenue, a third goes to content, and most of that is sport. Dump sport, reduce prices, reduce costs. The Kiwi ESPN can be Skys or someone elses and its PPV only. Cost plus margin. User pays.

I'd be happy with that, IF that cost plus margin wasn't too costly. At the moment to get Sky Sports, which is a reasonably good option, you also have to have Sky Basic, HDi rental and an HD ticket, which is $75-80 before you even pay for the sport.

Sport only, in HD, streaming or via STB, for less than $50 would be a winner for me (on top of the Freeview channels).

Jas777

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#1385491 11-Sep-2015 10:34

vexxxboy: I have Sky for sport, and i dont even watch Rugby, i have it for the American sports and it is way cheaper than buying individual subscriptions. I watch NFL. $220 a year, NBA $300 a year. Baseball $200 a year, College Football, havent found anything to watch online, All the ESPN original programming. you can buy them but they are $2-3 each and there are 5 a day i record 5 days a week so that would be $50-$60 a week . Sky is great value.

So true and people expect that they could get the NZ equivalent sports and other overseas content for $40 a month?

networkn

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#1385502 11-Sep-2015 10:47

I want Sky for 3 Things:

1) Sport - Rugby only really.
2) Food TV (Was the original reason for buying Sky, and the only reason at the time).
3) Kids TV, Nick Junior, and I could live without this, as Netflix provides ample opportunity for kids TV.

I would be over the moon if I could pay for those three things and get them via STB (I don't want to stream it's fraught with too many variables of things that can go wrong).

Thing is, without a choice, I'd pay almost anything for Rugby. I am a fanatic. I am just glad I could find a deal that made it more accessible.

I would actually pay $80-100 a month if Sky provided all the content I wanted in HD, had fresh content regularly, worked on improving their offering (EPG, Pop up Channels etc) and communicated well. I don't overly care about ads as long as they are targeted to the channel I am watching and there is one ad every say 20-30 minutes of watching.

tdgeek

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#1385504 11-Sep-2015 10:51

Jas777:
vexxxboy: I have Sky for sport, and i dont even watch Rugby, i have it for the American sports and it is way cheaper than buying individual subscriptions. I watch NFL. $220 a year, NBA $300 a year. Baseball $200 a year, College Football, havent found anything to watch online, All the ESPN original programming. you can buy them but they are $2-3 each and there are 5 a day i record 5 days a week so that would be $50-$60 a week . Sky is great value.

So true and people expect that they could get the NZ equivalent sports and other overseas content for $40 a month?

It may well be that Sport is subsidised. Basic etc. So if Sky was sportless, Basic is cheaper. Sport as a stand alone service is cost plus, it might be $50 a month and not $26, any complaints, and its cost plus. Its not hidden in the melting pot of revenue and costs, its on the table, this is what it costs. And Sky can reduce prices by reducing sport. Theoretical thoughts only

Jas777

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#1385518 11-Sep-2015 11:19

tdgeek:
Jas777:
vexxxboy: I have Sky for sport, and i dont even watch Rugby, i have it for the American sports and it is way cheaper than buying individual subscriptions. I watch NFL. $220 a year, NBA $300 a year. Baseball $200 a year, College Football, havent found anything to watch online, All the ESPN original programming. you can buy them but they are $2-3 each and there are 5 a day i record 5 days a week so that would be $50-$60 a week . Sky is great value.

So true and people expect that they could get the NZ equivalent sports and other overseas content for $40 a month?

It may well be that Sport is subsidised. Basic etc. So if Sky was sportless, Basic is cheaper. Sport as a stand alone service is cost plus, it might be $50 a month and not $26, any complaints, and its cost plus. Its not hidden in the melting pot of revenue and costs, its on the table, this is what it costs. And Sky can reduce prices by reducing sport. Theoretical thoughts only

What is cost though? The cost of the rights? The cost of the rights + production costs? The cost of the rights + production costs + overhead costs?

For Sports especially NZ ones the cost of Production is going to increase the subscription. It is not just taking an overseas feed

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muppet

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#1385625 11-Sep-2015 13:02

Make it so I can stream the hidden channel 999 on SkyGo.

I love to take "BEEEEEP MOVING LINE BEEEEP MOVING LINE BEEEEPPP MOVING LINE BEEEEP MOVING LINE BEEEEPPP MOVING LINE BEEEEP MOVING LINE BEEEEPPP MOVING LINE BEEEEP MOVING LINE BEEEEPPP" with me when I go places.

Beep & Moving Line,

Muppet

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#1385655 11-Sep-2015 13:35

Sky are certainly a big greedy evil corporate, but they are to some degree at the mercy of other big evil greedy corporates, when it comes to things like sports viewing costs, program rights costs etc.

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ockel

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#1385827 11-Sep-2015 17:49

littleheaven: Stop charging extra for the HD ticket
Allow people to choose which channels they want and price the package appropriately
Improve the quality/reliability of Sky Go
An option to buy sport by the tournament - I don't want to pay for 20 different sports on 4 channels when all I want is the Black Caps games

Cant see the HD ticket being dropped. Its still an additional $10/mth for HD in Australia and it remains GBP5.25/mth for HD in the UK. Given both markets are much larger and the latter more developed vs Sky NZ it'd take something very different to happen here before HD ticket gets dropped.

Even Directv in the US charges an additional $5/mth for extra HD channels.

And besides think through the economics. Sky has 7 transponders so a theoretical 70 SD channels (excluding those on the Freeview mux) so roughly $500k/channel/pa satellite carriage cost. If memory has me correct a transponder can carry 8-10 SD channels or 2 HD channels and 2 SD? Even if it can carry 4 HD channels on a transponder it faces an economic choice given the HD costs at least $500k/channel more to broadcast. At 15 channels of HD theres $7.5m of extra cost to recover from the subscriber base per annum.

And thats just the sat costs. HD linking would be additional costs and HD programming similarly.

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richms

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#1385840 11-Sep-2015 18:12

Best think sky could do is die IMO.

But if they must keep running.

HD everything. You cant get SD TV's anymore so why send low res content.
Stop forcing the hardware as part of the subscription. UK has it better where you buy your box etc.
Full catchup service at the same quality, not low bitrate rubbish like the other channels. You obviously have a copy of that content since you sent it, so if I miss recording it on my box I dont see why it cant just grab a copy of it from your copy over the internet, as it was broadcast.
Stop conforming content to a 50Hz framerate. Its not the 80's anymore, leave 60Hz stuff as is and let the minority with vintage TV's suffer.
Stop charging the earth for multiroom.
Space upgrades on the recorders, since they are tiny. Allow watching content from one of them on another across the network.

Richard rich.ms

nigelj

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#1385864 11-Sep-2015 18:51

I'd say... stop running absolutely stupid promotions like the current one with Harvey Norman.

For those that haven't seen it advertised, it's essentially: "Buy a 55"+ UHD TV before X Sept, and get free Sky Basic install (if not a current Sky customer), $100 Sky Credit, and 6 PPVs". Not sure on TV prices, but in the Herald ad today the cheapest qualifying TV was ~$2200, so based on that:

You drop a large sum of money on a giant TV with a really high quality screen, get a non-HD capable Sky box, with channels that in some cases aren't really encoded well in the first place, and also 6 PPV movies a month+ after DVD/BR/etc release, also in SD.

Of course, it hurts both businesses but surely it's not too far fetched to think the following comment will be made at least once... "Wow, I brought this really great TV, it looked stunning in store with all the test graphics, but wow, now I'm using Sky and it looks UGLY".

ockel

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#1385867 11-Sep-2015 18:54

richms: Best think sky could do is die IMO.

But if they must keep running.

HD everything. You cant get SD TV's anymore so why send low res content.
Stop forcing the hardware as part of the subscription. UK has it better where you buy your box etc.
Full catchup service at the same quality, not low bitrate rubbish like the other channels. You obviously have a copy of that content since you sent it, so if I miss recording it on my box I dont see why it cant just grab a copy of it from your copy over the internet, as it was broadcast.
Stop conforming content to a 50Hz framerate. Its not the 80's anymore, leave 60Hz stuff as is and let the minority with vintage TV's suffer.
Stop charging the earth for multiroom.
Space upgrades on the recorders, since they are tiny. Allow watching content from one of them on another across the network.

Okay so I'm curious as to whats a decent price for multiroom?
Foxtel wants $15/mth for a standard digital decoder and $25/mth for a MySky box
Sky UK wants GBP11/mth for multiroom.

NZ doesnt seem out of the ballpark.

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tdgeek

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#1385869 11-Sep-2015 18:59

nigelj: I'd say... stop running absolutely stupid promotions like the current one with Harvey Norman.

For those that haven't seen it advertised, it's essentially: "Buy a 55"+ UHD TV before X Sept, and get free Sky Basic install (if not a current Sky customer), $100 Sky Credit, and 6 PPVs". Not sure on TV prices, but in the Herald ad today the cheapest qualifying TV was ~$2200, so based on that:

You drop a large sum of money on a giant TV with a really high quality screen, get a non-HD capable Sky box, with channels that in some cases aren't really encoded well in the first place, and also 6 PPV movies a month+ after DVD/BR/etc release, also in SD.

Of course, it hurts both businesses but surely it's not too far fetched to think the following comment will be made at least once... "Wow, I brought this really great TV, it looked stunning in store with all the test graphics, but wow, now I'm using Sky and it looks UGLY".

I guess they upset to a MySkyHDi? HN are the worlds best upsellers

richms

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#1385870 11-Sep-2015 19:01

Its $25 for a peasant decoder, if you want mysky then you have to pay their exorbitant mysky prices on top of the $25. But that will at least get you out of paying the HD surcharge.

On a $40ish basic package, thats well over half just to get it on a second tv.

Richard rich.ms

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