Foxtel leaves Sky HD in the dust

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Foxtel leaves Sky HD in the dust

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

3267 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 80

Trusted

#382976 22-Sep-2010 05:52

"at least according to Wiki..."

Sky and Foxtel has similar profit, but Sky has ~5x higher revenue (if you were to consider exchange rate). This means it costs 5x more to run in NZ than in AU, and is possibly the reason why Sky can not afford more channels or HD.

You can never have enough Volvos!

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 545

#382986 22-Sep-2010 07:45

allstarnz: at least according to Wiki, Sky are doing very nicely thank you very much....

FOXTEL
Revenue A$165 million
Profit A$73 million

SKY NEW ZEALAND
Revenue: NZ$692.0 million
Profit: NZ$88.1 million

So claiming poverty is hardly an issue.

They are just sitting on their hands raking in the dosh for their share holders right now it seems (fair enough for a publicly traded company I guess)

There is no incentive or need it seems for them to dig in to their pockets and pay for more HD. The excuse the D1 is full is sitting quite nicely with them so far.

You're not serious, are you?

FOXTEL Continues Earnings Momentum
12.8.2010
FOXTEL today announced a 17.5% growth in earnings (EBITDA) to $477m for the year to 30 June 2010. This result was supported by continued strong uptake of the FOXTEL iQ and FOXTEL High Definition services.

FOXTEL’s revenue for the year ended 30 June 2010 was up nearly 10% to just over $2b.

SKY's revenue for the year to June 2010 was $741m. Its EBITDA $277m. Its Profit $107m.

Contact Energy made $2bn in revenue, EBITDA of $426m and profit of $154m. Power prices going up year on year faster than inflation - next thing you'll be telling me that their raking in the profit for their shareholders.

Put it in context. If you get $5m interest from the bank it means nothing. But if its $5 interest on $20 of deposit it's fantastic. On $1000 of deposit its paltry. Profit figures in isolation are meanigless, returns on investment mean so much more.

But that rant is besides the point - believing Wiki for data is dangerous.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

allstarnz

1720 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 24

Trusted

#383066 22-Sep-2010 10:08

maybe you could update the wiki page then if the numbers aren't right....

I still maintain my point that Sky are being cheap, and aren't doing enough to expand their offerings in the TV side of the business.

JonnyCam

644 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 52

ID Verified

#383312 22-Sep-2010 19:23

and aren't doing enough to expand their offerings in the TV side of the business

They are doing (just) enough, based on their profit and subscriber numbers in NZ. They don't have to do anymore as they have no competition, granted - but thats business.

It's not a tax, it's an optional payment to a businnes who sell a premium product.
You value the product, and decide if you willl pay their price for the product offered.

when the competition then its better

True, but..
Nobody else is going to enter the NZ pay TV market, it's too small - wheres the incentive?
(not to mention the amount of time a lot of the sports rights are locked up with between News Ltd & respective codes)

With Telecom, they controlled all of the cables etc for delivering their service to houses, where anyone can rent space on a satellite (well, theroretically)

tstone

405 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 94

#383316 22-Sep-2010 19:28

DS9:
ockel:
magu:
ockel:
magu: I'm counting 8 HD channels on Sky (correct me if I'm wrong: 4 Movies, 4 Sports).

25 HD channels on Foxtel, but how many are subscription-only (eg. Discovery, Animal Planet)?

I couldn't follow your maths. You switch from AUD to NZD and then back, kinda confusing.

I'll assume it's:

Sky - $123/mth with 8 HD channels
Foxtel - $151/mth with 25 HD channels

It's closer, but still a no-brainer on the content.

Sorry, my bad. But you interpreted correctly.
Can I ask how you get to 25 HD channels for Foxtel?

Fox8
W
UKTV
Movie One
Starpics 1 and 2
Showtime Prem
Showcase
Showtime Action
Discovery
NatGeo
ESPN
FoxSports 1/2/3
Plus Box Office (which is the equiv of OnDemand in NZ).

Thats 15 HD channels - even as claimed by Foxtel. There are 3 HD channels that you can get with the basic package - ie $42/mth for the basic plus $16/mth for the HD plus $10/mth for the IQ. The others are associated with the respective packages (ie to get HD movies, you need the movie package). Same as NZ.

And I think you're overstating the Sky HD channels. Sport 1/2, Movies 1/2. Thats 4 channels in NZ vs 15 channels in Australia. So $28/mth extra for 11 extra HD channels in Australia.

I'm going by the amount the OP stated.

11 channels for $28/mth is still a good improvement.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Going from 15 HD channels in Aust to 19 plus a 3D channel. And no word as yet from Foxtel whether there will be any price adjustments on Nov 1 when the new channels are added......

I would pay another $25pm for:

Discovery HD
Nat Geo HD
Sky Movies 2 HD
Sky Sport 3 HD
ESPN HD
UKTV HD
Prime HD

this would use 1 tp.

allstarnz

1720 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 24

Trusted

#383327 22-Sep-2010 19:52

JonnyCam:
and aren't doing enough to expand their offerings in the TV side of the business

They are doing (just) enough, based on their profit and subscriber numbers in NZ. They don't have to do anymore as they have no competition, granted - but thats business.

It's not a tax, it's an optional payment to a businnes who sell a premium product.
You value the product, and decide if you willl pay their price for the product offered.

correct. i like what they offer, but I feel they should offer more. If the price is right (ie not gouging) I would be willing to pay for it too.

this is not about price, but what Sky actually offer to their subscribers, and their lack of reinvestment into more hardware to increase their offerings.

Go somewhere else? Where? I can't get Foxtel in NZ, I already have Freeview.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

Duffuss

113 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#383475 23-Sep-2010 09:53

I totaly agree allstarnz

We buy all these new toys-HDtv's etc and sky promotes it's myskiHD with a choice of a very very limited 4 options
biggest crackup is that their own Prime is in crudvision

accordvtak

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#383759 23-Sep-2010 19:31

Sky is in the mix of offering more content in HD. Bandwidth is stretched to the limit already. 1HD channel is the equivalent of 4.2 SD channels worth of data, PLUS it's compressed, which is why they cannot expand until they launch off the other Optus sat. If you notice Sky have been installing dual throat quad output LNB's, offering broader bandwidth and more content in the near future (very soon) (1) 18v 22kHz (2) 13v 22kHz (3) 18v 0Hz (Freeview/Sky) (4) 13v 0Hz. At this stage all I know is they will be using 2 signals for Mysky HDi and maybe a 3rd for home shopping channels.

old3eyes

9158 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1365

Subscriber

#383897 24-Sep-2010 08:20

I wonder if that's why a friend of mine recently got sky and the installer ran in two cables to the Mysky

Regards,

Old3eyes

mattbush

784 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 102
Inactive user

#383995 24-Sep-2010 11:43

I believe telvision companies pay for their content on a per capita basis

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 545

#384015 24-Sep-2010 12:31

mattbush: I believe telvision companies pay for their content on a per capita basis

To some degree I think you're correct but I dont think its that simple.

In some cases its a fixed cost like buying rights to a major sporting event (Rugby World Cup, Olympics etc). Or a fixed price of total output or series for the FTA's and pay's acquiring content from a major distributor/studio (ABC/Disney or HBO or showtime). This would typically be the case where the broadcaster is responsible for the programming schedule. I think Foxtel buys its sports from FoxSports on a per sub per month basis. Sky, as an assembler, has to acquire the rights and they probably vary depending on the sporting code.

I understand movies are a very different though with payments relating to the box office performance of the movie, and probably related to the time since shown on the big screen. Back catalogues I'm not sure about. But for a company like Foxtel which buys its movies from Showtime (I think)

Otherwise you're right - I think a lot of pass thru channels would be an a per subscriber or per capita basis. Dollars or cents per month.

And then you have to add the fixed costs - satellite bandwidth costs (leased on a per mux basis) linking costs from offshore (Europe, US, Australia), outside broadcast costs for sports in NZ. But does one think of these as content or distribution. Likely the latter but if you're Foxtel and serving up to 5m homes on a single transponder holding a number of channels vs Sky serving 1.6m homes then the cost of distribution is very different between the two companies. Defraying your costs over a larger population is much easier and allows Foxtel, for example, to derive a different marginal revenue/average cost equation than a smaller scale operator in a smaller market.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

Dyson

Shop now for Dyson appliances (affiliate link).

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 545

#384832 27-Sep-2010 11:25

Offtopic but according to the World Avertising Research Center:

"Currently, HD channels make up just 3% of the European market. "

Given TV1/2/3 plus SS1/2 and SM1/Greats that makes 7 channels of HD. Something like 100 channels in NZ so I'm guessing that for HD content we're batting above the average.
Of course if one debates about the amount of HD content on TV1/2/3 then we'd be back to about Euro average.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

mentalinc

3384 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1023

Trusted

#384836 27-Sep-2010 11:32

Except the channels you just listed show about .005% HD content e.g. 1 -4 shows per week. They are not really HD.

CPU: AMD 5900x | RAM: GSKILL Trident Z Neo RGB F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC-32-GB | MB: Asus X570-E | GFX: EVGA FTW3 Ultra RTX 3080Ti| Monitor: LG 27GL850-B 2560x1440

Quic: https://account.quic.nz/refer/473833 R473833EQKIBX

DS9

325 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 20

Lifetime subscriber

#384874 27-Sep-2010 12:15

ockel: Offtopic but according to the World Avertising Research Center:

"Currently, HD channels make up just 3% of the European market. "

Given TV1/2/3 plus SS1/2 and SM1/Greats that makes 7 channels of HD. Something like 100 channels in NZ so I'm guessing that for HD content we're batting above the average.
Of course if one debates about the amount of HD content on TV1/2/3 then we'd be back to about Euro average.

It is like saying that: In the UK there is 1HD channel per 1.2m people where here it is 1HD per 615000. Does this mean we are doing better for HD channels?

I aim to misbehave.

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 545

#384903 27-Sep-2010 13:01

mentalinc: Except the channels you just listed show about .005% HD content e.g. 1 -4 shows per week. They are not really HD.

I think Sky claim 90% of movies are in HD on those channels. Sport is more than 1-4 shows per week.
My math is pretty bad but I'm thinking thats more than .005%.

Incidentally isnt 0.005% less than half a minute per week?

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

1 | 2 | 3 | 4