Where is iSky???

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2031 posts

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#422409 29-Dec-2010 15:53

SepticSceptic:
ockel: Presuming market failure in an open and efficient market is something for Ministry of Culture and Heritage to waste its time on rather than via throwaway comments without understanding the market structure and operation.

Whether it's a monopoly or not, those that choose not to have Sky for various reasons, or only want to watch a particular version of "iconic" sports, needing to sign up for a full Sky subscription + an extra for the sports channels certainly is a very close second to a monopolistic stance.

The Australian govt has mandated that certain iconic sports ( Bathurst, NRL, etc ) have to be shown on FTA, and LIVE !!! . None of this delayed telecast bollocks the next day for the AB's international games.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/mp/8391552/icon-sports-stay-on-free-tv/

And the Australian public have been treated to The Sound of Music and Dukes of Hazzard instead of live Bledisloe Cup. The FTA players in Australia have abused their "monopoly" on sports rights and successfully lobbied to maintain those rights for more years. At least this time there is a 26 week deadline whereby rights that the FTA's chose not to exercise must be offered to other networks (ironically FTA's before any other) rather than the incredibly short period in the past. There have been sports rights that have languished as no broadcaster has been able to re-schedule at short notice.

Anyone who thinks the Australian public is best served by the anti-siphoning legislation should shift across to Australia and lift the IQ of both countries. Its protectionist at the least and insulting at worst. Next thing you know they'll be trying to keep our apples from entering their country.

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

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#422443 29-Dec-2010 18:58

Sky don't have a monopoly, it's just that they have outbid the other channels for some events. While I am irritated with Sky for a number of reasons, having a monopoly isn't one of them - the broadcast rights are auctioned and all broadcasters are able to bid.

Personally, I prefer the pay model to the ad-supported free to air model for the sports I follow (which aren't many). Better that than losing coverage when they go into unplanned extra time, and having the game interrupted every seven minutes - with the volume doubling and some demented woman's voice shrieking at me to "Go Harvey, Go Harvey" while I dive for the remote.

While current arrangements aren't perfect, the last thing I want is politicians putting their oar in and deciding what is broadcast, to who, how and when.

tdgeek

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#422460 29-Dec-2010 20:10

[While current arrangements aren't perfect, the last thing I want is politicians putting their oar in and deciding what is broadcast, to who, how and when.]

+1

Let the market decide. SepticSceptic has his view and thats fine. What we have TV wise is the classic market supply and demand. Sky, for many, has great content, they earn revenue which allows the purchase of good content and no 4 minute ads every 7 minutes. FTA is well equipped to compete with Sky, it can purchase top content and reduce ads. It can then fund that by .................................being pay tv.

So, FTA is free to air, good content. Pay TV has a cost, but for that you get better and more content. Thats the way of the world SepticSceptic.

Having the Govt decide is regulation, and will reduce content as a business like Sky cannot succeed or fail on its own merits and decision making.

That affects the content that is made available to all who choose it.

old3eyes

9120 posts

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#422493 29-Dec-2010 21:44

JimmyH: Sky don't have a monopoly, it's just that they have outbid the other channels for some events. While I am irritated with Sky for a number of reasons, having a monopoly isn't one of them - the broadcast rights are auctioned and all broadcasters are able to bid.

Personally, I prefer the pay model to the ad-supported free to air model for the sports I follow (which aren't many). Better that than losing coverage when they go into unplanned extra time, and having the game interrupted every seven minutes - with the volume doubling and some demented woman's voice shrieking at me to "Go Harvey, Go Harvey" while I dive for the remote.

While current arrangements aren't perfect, the last thing I want is politicians putting their oar in and deciding what is broadcast, to who, how and when.

I beg to differ. Sky is a monopoly with way deeper pockets than any FTA network in NZ can afford. They have deep pockets called subscribers and advertizers and as for ad free. Don't make me laugh. Since 1990 they have ramped up to 45 minutes of programming and 15 minutes of ads compared to 42 minutes of programming and 18 minutes of ads on FTA. Sure FTA could bid for the same sports etc as Sky but the advertizers would not pay for it..

Regards,

Old3eyes

tdgeek

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#422501 29-Dec-2010 22:01

Monopoly = one provider

TV is not provided by one provider in this country.

NonprayingMantis

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#422508 29-Dec-2010 22:14

tdgeek: Monopoly = one provider

TV is not provided by one provider in this country.

correct, but you don't buy 'TV' you buy the things that are shown on it. there is only one provider of certian live sporting events like the ashes, All Blacks games etc. And that is sky.

Zeon

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#422520 29-Dec-2010 22:44

The thing I don't understand is why such events need a monopoly in airing at all? Wouldn't the content provider be able to make more money selling more licenses even if the price received for each is devalued for the fact that the broadcaster(s) would be facing competition?

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tdgeek

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#422544 30-Dec-2010 00:48

You cannot say a monopoly exists if a content is only shown on one provider, sorry but that is ridiculous. Whoever shows Coro St (TV2?) therefore has a monopoly position in NZ???

Oh and that Sky is pay tv is not relevant, TV 1 is pay tv, so are all channels, it is just that advertisers pay the fees not the subscribers.

As you would expect, rarely are shows on more than one channel. We have choice, many channels, a range of content, the consumer can now choose.

I dont believe more licences would work, otherwise they would do that. Advertisers want the audience that matches the content. A sporting event or prime time. They will pay much less if they are forced to advertise on multiple networks.

mattbush

784 posts

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#422606 30-Dec-2010 11:52

Sky is a happy place...

They are just trying to position themselves for things like national broadband etcetc...they can piss off their customers while doing it as they dont have any competition.

JimmyH

2886 posts

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#422698 30-Dec-2010 19:03

old3eyes:
JimmyH: Sky don't have a monopoly, it's just that they have outbid the other channels for some events. While I am irritated with Sky for a number of reasons, having a monopoly isn't one of them - the broadcast rights are auctioned and all broadcasters are able to bid.

Personally, I prefer the pay model to the ad-supported free to air model for the sports I follow (which aren't many). Better that than losing coverage when they go into unplanned extra time, and having the game interrupted every seven minutes - with the volume doubling and some demented woman's voice shrieking at me to "Go Harvey, Go Harvey" while I dive for the remote.

While current arrangements aren't perfect, the last thing I want is politicians putting their oar in and deciding what is broadcast, to who, how and when.

I beg to differ. Sky is a monopoly with way deeper pockets than any FTA network in NZ can afford. They have deep pockets called subscribers and advertizers and as for ad free. Don't make me laugh. Since 1990 they have ramped up to 45 minutes of programming and 15 minutes of ads compared to 42 minutes of programming and 18 minutes of ads on FTA. Sure FTA could bid for the same sports etc as Sky but the advertizers would not pay for it..

No, that's not the meaning of monopoly. There are multiple broadcasters (Sky, TV3, TVNZ), all of which are free to bid for content, and with the freeview platform there are lowering costs of entry for new players as well.

Either way, you pay to watch TV. You either pay through parting with cash (pay TV), or with your time/annoyance through having the film/sports event frequently interrupted so you can be bombarded with shrieking commercials. What we are seeing in NZ, as well as overseas, is that the pay TV business model works best for certain types of events (sport, premium movies), where many people are prepared to pay monetary a premium for quality uninterrupted coverage.

I am not an Sky booster, as should have been clear from my post, and I agree with you that the ad density on some Sky channels is approaching the saturation of the free to air channels and is very very annoying. That is the reason why I gave up on Spartacus in the first episode, and channels like the Box aren't really watchable. However, I like my sports games and movies uninterrupted, and am prepared to pay reasonable money to achieve this. As a number of other people clearly think the same, Pay TV is able to get more revenue from the events and thus bid more for them that FTA. Many people are willing to pay more in cash than their eyeballs are worth to advertisers, and so that business model wins. It's simply the market at work.

BigMal

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#422710 30-Dec-2010 19:25

But if we only have one pay tv provider (sky) and the pay tv model always beats the FTA/advert model then sky does have a sort of monopoly don't you think?

You are correct in saying all channels are capable of bidding but if they can't possibly win then what is the point?

What live sports are left on FTA nowadays? Are there any?

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#422747 30-Dec-2010 20:41

No, they have a better business model. Your example is analogous saying that if KFC makes their food taste much better to McDonalds, Burger King on Pizza Hut, then KFC has a "sort of monopoly" on fast food.

They do have a first mover advantage, insofar as they have already invested a large amount of money to build a good base of installed decoders and Freeview (for some inexplicable reason) decided not to ship with the functionality that would enable some channels to be added to the platform on a pay basis in future. However, they can't rely on this - especially with improving technology making other delivery channels like the internet more feasible.

Plus, as broadband improves, there is nothing to stop a business model developing in a couple of years where (say) the Rugby Union sells broadcast rights to a streaming service (eg some further development of the iTunes platform, or PPV with a credit card on the TVNZ on demand site). Sky has secured a temporary advantage with their business model, but will have to work hard to keep their product more attractive than competitors - its a case of innovate or die. In my case - they need to dial back the irritating adverts/promos before I cancel!

nigelj

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#422791 30-Dec-2010 22:36

JimmyH: They do have a first mover advantage, insofar as they have already invested a large amount of money to build a good base of installed decoders and Freeview (for some inexplicable reason) decided not to ship with the functionality that would enable some channels to be added to the platform on a pay basis in future. However, they can't rely on this - especially with improving technology making other delivery channels like the internet more feasible.

I'd say they would have lost some of the Government funding/hand-outs (such as spectrum) if they decided to have a PPV option.

And in a way, Sky do have a near monopoly, they have a fairly large chunk of Satellite bandwidth (for lack of a better/proper word) to run a lot of channels, they get a fairly decent deal out of the Broadcasting Standards Authority (essentially their own rules) which allows them to screen pretty much what they want, when they want, where they want (partly due to the fact that all their decoders have content restriction/parent controls built in).

Based on the assumption that anything on the Sky rating system as M/16+ is going to be marked as M/AO on the free to air classification system, then there is a lot of content that TV1/2/3/C4/Prime would have trouble screening if they wanted to.

Also as an observation, Sky don't seem to make a lot of New Zealand content (apart from Sports), even in Australia, Foxtel (Sky's equivalent) make _some_ Australian content (including some fairly decent stuff).

If Free to Air didn't have to fund/show local content, didn't have to fund/show Maori content, and were allowed to repeat the same show on a non-stop loop (24/7 Corro Street on TV1 anyone? ;)) then I'm sure they might be about to afford to compete on a couple of sports bids...

Personally I liked the Australian system, where X% of FTA content had to be locally made (and I think another X% of that had to be fresh) and certain sports (or games of the sports) where protected. Channel 9's Cricket coverage (just watch the 5th Ashes for the 9 coverage) is far better in my opinion than the job Sky NZ do, and they are free to air over there... Ten's coverage of the Netball was fairly good too, and I always thought the FTA networks did a better job of showing the AFL than Foxtel.

As far as iSky is (which is after all the original topic), the focus is well and truly on Sport in my opinion, and the rest is to perhaps make up the numbers, I might change my tune if they add a lot more catch-up style content, but yeah.....

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#422825 31-Dec-2010 01:12

tdgeek: You cannot say a monopoly exists if a content is only shown on one provider, sorry but that is ridiculous. Whoever shows Coro St (TV2?) therefore has a monopoly position in NZ???

technically yes, assuming they have the exclusive rights to it and don't let anyone else get it. Although since it is on free to air TV the fact that it is a monopoly is irrelevant, since it is free and anyone can get it without paying a cent.

ockel

2031 posts

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#422851 31-Dec-2010 07:26

NonprayingMantis:
tdgeek: You cannot say a monopoly exists if a content is only shown on one provider, sorry but that is ridiculous. Whoever shows Coro St (TV2?) therefore has a monopoly position in NZ???

technically yes, assuming they have the exclusive rights to it and don't let anyone else get it. Although since it is on free to air TV the fact that it is a monopoly is irrelevant, since it is free and anyone can get it without paying a cent.

Nope. As jimmyh points out its a different business model. The content is paid for by advertising so its an indirect cost to the consumer (time spent viewing commercials and the cost of advertising embedded in the products/services). Consumers dont physically pay for it but to describe it as free would have to mean that the broadcaster runs the content advertising free.

But in saying that if the regulator doesnt understand well enough to make the distinction then what can one say?

Free to air doesnt mean that the content is free just that the signal is broadcast without restrictions.

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

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