Sky blames piracy for lost customers. Sky: it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Sky blames piracy for lost customers. Sky: it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

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#1851209 23-Aug-2017 12:42

Also have to remember their non-loyalty and churning is trying to get capitol to pay for the rights involved in sport. The sci-fi/specialist/drama shows are likely just a cheap aquired high gain bonus for them for non-sport watching. A lot of the time its not a case of 'outbid', but rather national entity can't afford. (or willing to)

It use to be a 1:1 battle with Canworks/TVNZ/Sky but the shift has gone more firmly in skys direction due to the sheer costs involved to think about it.

Similarly how netflix has had to gamble and take out $7b loans to cover the costs of new production, in the HOPE that subscribers will help in the long run

2015 $1.3b

2016: $3b debt https://www.polygon.com/2016/10/24/13386208/netflix-debt-original-content

2017 further $1.1b added https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/24/yep-netflix-inc-is-taking-on-another-11-billion-of.aspx

NBCUniversal announced that it had acquired the television rights for the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 Olympics, beating out ESPN/ABC and Fox. The entire package was worth $4.38 billion, making it the most expensive television rights deal in Olympic history. NBC paid $775 million for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and $1.23 billion for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. NBC also paid $963 million for the rights to the 2018 Winter Olympics (to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea) and $1.45 billion for the 2020 Summer Olympics (in Tokyo, Japan).

A whopping 47% of the costs come from selling the broadcast rights for the olympics they grab. Hence the *grumble grumble* to show FTA stuff on prime.. https://www.olympic.org/ioc-financing-revenue-sources-distribution

Rugby is likely tightly controlled, but hard to gauge. Given sky will pay for host broadcast feeds when offshore, while local games (which are super popular overseas due to the nations team) are sold out to broadcast to the other country providers via OSB - guess who owns them.

But with this, it does seem odd some of them are then shown FTA in other countries from the same outgoing feeds...

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#1851213 23-Aug-2017 12:44

Sky are stuck in a bit of a spot as they need to provide satellite based content to cover the country. They are sticking with that distribution model as it is a fixed cost and covers every New Zealander.

They also need to have a foot in the streaming market and this is where they have let themselves down. All their streaming products have and do suck.

Neon is buggy as hell.

Fanpass works until a giant All Blacks game. They have fixed that now though with the price. ;-)

They are going to have suck it up and do both satellite and streaming properly, unbundle their content for individual packages, offer HD as standard and get a new outlook on life. Blocking the NBR on twitter shows the current mentality.

They need to do a Labour Party...

The next round of rugby bidding will be do or die for them. Unless they change their model before then the NZRU might just drop them no matter what they pay....

Cheers, Matt.

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#1851217 23-Aug-2017 12:50

NZRU would be good picking for someone like Amazon to swoop in.

Happened in the UK.

surfisup1000

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#1851223 23-Aug-2017 12:54

Lias:

I pretty much do think that. NZ has some awesome consumer protection laws, we have legalised circumvention of DVD regions, legalised parallel importing, commerce commission etc. When companies want to sell things in a way that's not in the best interests of consumers, we as a country are quite willing to legislatively slap them down in most areas, but this really hasn't happened in this particular area, and it's about time it did. I've openly said before we should bring in legislation reshaping the TV/streaming landscape into a consumer friendly one. Customers choose their poison of provider be that Sky, Netflix, Lightbox, etc, and get _all_ the things on that, content providers get paid based on plays, and if content providers refuse to participate it becomes legal to pirate their product(s). We have a regulated power system that gives consumers a choice, we have a regulated internet system that gives consumers a choice, we need a regulated video content system, because unlike the music/gaming markets, the private sector has shown itself of being incapable of sorting itself out.

Consumer protection does not go so far as to allowing people to steal content because they don't like watching ads or the delivery model.

You pretty much argue that content owners have no rights over their product at all unless they do precisely what you demand.

MikeAqua

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#1851226 23-Aug-2017 12:57

They lost my business not because I engage in piracy - I don't and won't.

They lost my business because I realised there are only really three things I want to watch enough to pay for them.

All Black games,
Highlanders games and
Throne games.

The rest of the bundled programming I had to buy to access those things, I don't miss at all.

Mike

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#1851232 23-Aug-2017 13:02

While Sky are making large profit's in terms of actual dollars, the return on equity is in the normal range showing that their pricing is fair for their cost base. What their issue is that the market doesn't think those prices are justified but Sky just can't reduce them much further before they start making losses.

What they need to do is something to reduce their cost base. While i haven't reviewed their financial statements, there is a large capital investment and cost in their distribution network. Move to an online model and that will be cheaper for them. Yes, you may lose customers who don't have the necessary broadband speed to have their content delivered online, but you may have a more profitable business and be able to deliver the content at a price people are happy with.

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Lias

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#1851234 23-Aug-2017 13:05

surfisup1000:

Consumer protection does not go so far as to allowing people to steal content because they don't like watching ads or the delivery model.

You pretty much argue that content owners have no rights over their product at all unless they do precisely what you demand.

To a degree I guess I do, in that I think that if companies are not willing to provide reasonably priced access to a product in the way that consumers demand, the law should let consumers circumvent that. I don't think I'm alone in that, given we already have some laws that apply exactly that thought to other products (e.g. DVD region circumvention and parallel importing).

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

SheriffNZ

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#1851235 23-Aug-2017 13:06

Sounddude:

NZRU would be good picking for someone like Amazon to swoop in.

Happened in the UK.

The issue any potential purchaser will have is that Sky currently have the onsite broadcasting team and infrastructure locked up so any person who purchasers the rights either has to contract Sky to film the games, purchase the equipment off Sky, or bring in equipment from (probably) overseas.

DarthKermit

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#1851242 23-Aug-2017 13:17

It's unfair. These poor guys get a lot of bad publicity.

networkn

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#1851243 23-Aug-2017 13:17

Pumpedd:

Sport is the big issue for Sky as it is so costly, and few would subscribe to Sport if they had to pay the true cost.

IMO....national games like rugby should be free to air so everyone can watch..not just those that can afford the $100/month plus. More than happy to pay to watch other programming via "affordable" services like Netflix. Until then people will pirate as they dont have any other choice. Fellet wants it all for himself and wont share....well there is news for him and its not good.

They are free to air, you can go to a pub, or you can watch it delayed by 1.5 hours, hardly a massive hardship if $100 is out of reach.

Also, Rugby isn't around for 3 months a year, so make use of that, have Sky with the $50 deal and cancel after 9 months and get it back 3 months later, rinse and repeat. It's a rort of the system, but well..

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#1851246 23-Aug-2017 13:23

SheriffNZ:

The issue any potential purchaser will have is that Sky currently have the onsite broadcasting team and infrastructure locked up so any person who purchasers the rights either has to contract Sky to film the games, purchase the equipment off Sky, or bring in equipment from (probably) overseas.

Its actually a seperate company from Sky (Just owned by Sky) and a lot of it is outsourced to Kordias recording arm.

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#1851248 23-Aug-2017 13:29

I am fortunate I can afford Sky at full price, though I am fortunate I haven't had to pay that for a couple of years. It would cost me $20 to go to the movies, and I get a *lot* of enjoyment from Rugby and during SR, I get a minimum of 4 and usually more like 12 games a month I watch. I watch food TV when I have time and that was the original reason for getting Sky. Sadly I don't have much time. My wife likes the recording function for Greys Anatomy, and so overall, it's not awful value. I would be very happy to get MySky, HD Ticket, 5 channels of my choosing (from their basic group) and Rugby for $70 a month. If they charged $10 for Soho, I'd get that too

SheriffNZ

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#1851249 23-Aug-2017 13:36

Sounddude:

SheriffNZ:

The issue any potential purchaser will have is that Sky currently have the onsite broadcasting team and infrastructure locked up so any person who purchasers the rights either has to contract Sky to film the games, purchase the equipment off Sky, or bring in equipment from (probably) overseas.

Its actually a seperate company from Sky (Just owned by Sky) and a lot of it is outsourced to Kordias recording arm.

Makes sense, still, what's not outsourced is still an issue for any purchaser.

Behodar

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#1851264 23-Aug-2017 13:48

Lias: We as a society have shown content creators time and time again we are willing to pay them for their content, just maybe not how much they want us to pay.

And it's not only the price, but the timing. For example, I don't think there's any way to buy the latest episodes of Game of Thrones. For a few years they were available on iTunes, but now all the legal options seem to be time-limited streams. They'll be available for purchase in the future, but why can't I buy them today?

Oldmanakbar

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#1851267 23-Aug-2017 13:55

Pretty much all the comments here and elsewhere are generally in the same tune. They need to wake up and adjust or they will become extinct.

I am very suprised the man in charge has not been asked to pack up a cardboard box with his desk contents.

Whenever someone mentions Sky the first word that pops into my head is Kodak, it is easy to draw similarities between them. But maybe that is what they want, to go so fast down the loo they have to file for bankruptcy, does that gain them anything in this country in regards to being protected from debt?

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