What could Sky change/improve/do better?

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#1385874 11-Sep-2015 19:08

Sky does have a business model that includes many costs. As Ockel outlined, sat costs are huge. Content spend is 32% of revenue, so thats ballpark 300 million. Staff, admin, free installs on deals, and probably etc etc and etc. I imagine they would blend that down with SVOD over time. But as per the article I posted they are strong, there is little evidence of churn, and I expect they have time to adapt. That will benefit all of us

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#1385906 11-Sep-2015 20:12

richms: 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.

my apologies, you're right. That is exorbitant. I thought it was $25/mth for the mysky box as a multiroom. My mistake.

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#1385909 11-Sep-2015 20:16

tdgeek: Sky does have a business model that includes many costs. As Ockel outlined, sat costs are huge. Content spend is 32% of revenue, so thats ballpark 300 million. Staff, admin, free installs on deals, and probably etc etc and etc. I imagine they would blend that down with SVOD over time. But as per the article I posted they are strong, there is little evidence of churn, and I expect they have time to adapt. That will benefit all of us

content $300m
sat costs $35m
linking and broadcast costs $55m (which must include OSB costs for that level).

it aint cheap. live sport is eye watering expensive.

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#1385913 11-Sep-2015 20:48

One then wonders, if their business model isn't viable what will happen over time, since without the matching revenue they won't be able to compete for content. If they couldn't compete for Rugby, one wonders what would occur.

Hard to believe they would be losing money on the $50 deal they are signing up at the moment.

As it is now, they have lost a bunch of sport that many subscribers wanted, yet fees remained the same. (In fact increased with CPI).

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#1385978 11-Sep-2015 22:10

networkn: One then wonders, if their business model isn't viable what will happen over time, since without the matching revenue they won't be able to compete for content. If they couldn't compete for Rugby, one wonders what would occur.

Hard to believe they would be losing money on the $50 deal they are signing up at the moment.

As it is now, they have lost a bunch of sport that many subscribers wanted, yet fees remained the same. (In fact increased with CPI).

Its viable. Earnings are sound, subscriptions are robust, in that they have a large number of customers and they are stable. Thats now.
SVOD, the competition is like Windows Phone. Its great, but traction is tough, as a TV remote or a Sky remote is set in stone, easy, it just works.
If Netflix and Lightbox advertise heavily, to show how easy it is, that will help.

Sport. IMO, if they shifted sport to a subsidiary, separate box, maybe same box, separate subscription, that would make Sky cheaper by perception, as it lacks the high cost sport content. Charge the sport sub as cost plus margin.

I can't see others taking on big sport, its too expensive.

Re losing sport, some of that isn't really big money sport. And the content costs of everything probably go up and down, you need an average. They would pick up free cash when sport is quiet, and pay back when its all happening.

The $50 deal is about 60% of their average sub. Drop the 900 mill gross revenue by 40%, and thats a big ouch. 360 million less profit, which equals a large loss

In time I can see them having two services, cheaper for pubic to have both, one is satellite, one is SVOD. Not simple but they have to manage a high hardware based business (brick and mortar, STB's) to compete with an almost no hardware based business (servers)

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#1385984 11-Sep-2015 22:26

tdgeek:
networkn: One then wonders, if their business model isn't viable what will happen over time, since without the matching revenue they won't be able to compete for content. If they couldn't compete for Rugby, one wonders what would occur.

Hard to believe they would be losing money on the $50 deal they are signing up at the moment.

As it is now, they have lost a bunch of sport that many subscribers wanted, yet fees remained the same. (In fact increased with CPI).

Its viable. Earnings are sound, subscriptions are robust, in that they have a large number of customers and they are stable. Thats now.
SVOD, the competition is like Windows Phone. Its great, but traction is tough, as a TV remote or a Sky remote is set in stone, easy, it just works.
If Netflix and Lightbox advertise heavily, to show how easy it is, that will help.

Sport. IMO, if they shifted sport to a subsidiary, separate box, maybe same box, separate subscription, that would make Sky cheaper by perception, as it lacks the high cost sport content. Charge the sport sub as cost plus margin.

I can't see others taking on big sport, its too expensive.

Re losing sport, some of that isn't really big money sport. And the content costs of everything probably go up and down, you need an average. They would pick up free cash when sport is quiet, and pay back when its all happening.

The $50 deal is about 60% of their average sub. Drop the 900 mill gross revenue by 40%, and thats a big ouch. 360 million less profit, which equals a large loss

In time I can see them having two services, cheaper for pubic to have both, one is satellite, one is SVOD. Not simple but they have to manage a high hardware based business (brick and mortar, STB's) to compete with an almost no hardware based business (servers)

They either have to drop the price, or innovate to make the service be perceived as better value. I believe most people want value, and value, isn't just price driven. As I mentioned earlier, I would probably fairly happily pay $80 for what I am now paying $50, if I could have fresher content
and an updated EPG, and better communication with Sky, and some transparency into what's going on with new content coming etc. They are completely closed (Even my recent email to the CEO didn't even get a courtesy response, from an underling), they don't take feedback, they don't respond
to requests or make an effort to appear like they care.

Netflix is constantly updating it's app's, it adds new content all the time. It has useful things like "hey you liked this and this, based on that, we think this might be a good match".

I believe if Sky lost Rugby, TV1 would pick it up, paid for or subsudized by the Government, such is the important of Rugby to Kiwi's.

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#1386009 11-Sep-2015 22:50

networkn: One then wonders, if their business model isn't viable what will happen over time, since without the matching revenue they won't be able to compete for content. If they couldn't compete for Rugby, one wonders what would occur.

Hard to believe they would be losing money on the $50 deal they are signing up at the moment.

As it is now, they have lost a bunch of sport that many subscribers wanted, yet fees remained the same. (In fact increased with CPI).

Netflix has lost a bunch of content that subscribers want (EPIX), dont see their fees changing.
Sport lost has been at the margin and will be lost/gained/lost/gained again. Its the nature of the model. Rugby is staying with Sky until 2020/21 so they have 5 years to see what develops, which model makes money, follow on.
Plenty of people said business was dead when it was UHF. It evolved. Plenty of people said the business was dead with IPTV in 2000 tech boom. Its taken 15 years for viable models to emerge - and who knows which ones will survive.

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#1386011 11-Sep-2015 22:56

ockel:
networkn: One then wonders, if their business model isn't viable what will happen over time, since without the matching revenue they won't be able to compete for content. If they couldn't compete for Rugby, one wonders what would occur.

Hard to believe they would be losing money on the $50 deal they are signing up at the moment.

As it is now, they have lost a bunch of sport that many subscribers wanted, yet fees remained the same. (In fact increased with CPI).

Netflix has lost a bunch of content that subscribers want (EPIX), dont see their fees changing.
Sport lost has been at the margin and will be lost/gained/lost/gained again. Its the nature of the model. Rugby is staying with Sky until 2020/21 so they have 5 years to see what develops, which model makes money, follow on.
Plenty of people said business was dead when it was UHF. It evolved. Plenty of people said the business was dead with IPTV in 2000 tech boom. Its taken 15 years for viable models to emerge - and who knows which ones will survive.

I fully expect that Netflix will source itself additional content. Netflix can justify not dropping it's prices, because it's still presenting excellent value for money, it listens to it's customers and it's innovating (4K). Sky does none of those things.

They won't die next week, or probably next year, but as people become aware of how easy it is to source alternative content, then the pressure will be on.

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#1386136 12-Sep-2015 12:10

networkn:
ockel:
networkn: One then wonders, if their business model isn't viable what will happen over time, since without the matching revenue they won't be able to compete for content. If they couldn't compete for Rugby, one wonders what would occur.

Hard to believe they would be losing money on the $50 deal they are signing up at the moment.

As it is now, they have lost a bunch of sport that many subscribers wanted, yet fees remained the same. (In fact increased with CPI).

Netflix has lost a bunch of content that subscribers want (EPIX), dont see their fees changing.
Sport lost has been at the margin and will be lost/gained/lost/gained again. Its the nature of the model. Rugby is staying with Sky until 2020/21 so they have 5 years to see what develops, which model makes money, follow on.
Plenty of people said business was dead when it was UHF. It evolved. Plenty of people said the business was dead with IPTV in 2000 tech boom. Its taken 15 years for viable models to emerge - and who knows which ones will survive.

I fully expect that Netflix will source itself additional content. Netflix can justify not dropping it's prices, because it's still presenting excellent value for money, it listens to it's customers and it's innovating (4K). Sky does none of those things.

They won't die next week, or probably next year, but as people become aware of how easy it is to source alternative content, then the pressure will be on.

ha, you sound like a Netflix exec. Netflix claims its original content will fill the gap left by EPIX.
Lets see...... Hunger Games or Netflix original content. Transformers or Netflix original content. Huge back catalogue of MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount) or Netflix original content.

People complained about not having a few NZ-SA cricket games and the loss of some fringe sports. Really? Many subscribers wanted? Hardly. With the additional pop-up channels I've seen more sport in the last 12 months than any time other than the Olympics. GZ users were vocal about getting a sci-fi channel. Admittedly it took years for Sky to notice but they did add a channel for sci-fi buffs. Sky, like all incumbents in any NZ industry, are extremely slow to move and slow to respond to customer demands (Telecom and Vodafone did nothing of value/interest until 2Degrees came along as a glaring example).

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#1386190 12-Sep-2015 13:03

Ockel where is the Sky scifi channel.

2 Degrees did bring stuff to the table but Telecom brought the $19 pack first

ockel

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#1386193 12-Sep-2015 13:09

tdgeek: Ockel where is the Sky scifi channel.

2 Degrees did bring stuff to the table but Telecom brought the $19 pack first

The Zone used to be channel 11 is now channel 9. And in HD too. I think it launched in Nov 14. Has plenty of Syfy originals, both Extant and Under the Dome new series have shifted from Prime to Zone, ZOO starts this month, weekend back sets (including some schlockers) and plenty of awful D-grade movies.

Telecom may have bought in the $19 pack but things like rollover minutes/data, better roaming, sharing data across devices/users. None of that happened until 2Degrees started and arguably may not have.

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#1386451 13-Sep-2015 03:54

Get rid of the water marks, What's the info button for lol.

Get rid of self promos during programs, these completely wreck the zone channel for me.

Have some documentry channels in HD, current count = 0, make space by having less channels on startup,
And all the wasted space on pay per view movies, crazy.

Being able to unsubscribe on web site directly, have done it by email but it takes a day or two to go through that way, only way to do it immeditely is to ring up on phone at present.

And providing products when advertised, big adverts in January Feburary this year about sky on demand coming to mysky box's soon. Still not here, funny definition of soon.

And finally I might be interested in Neon, if HD and there were easier ways to get on TV then plugging computer direct to TV.

And on netflix movies, most of movies I watch there, even older ones have lionsgate on them, so that loss is going to be a big blow to me. Guess it's going towards Almost all TV series only there.

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#1387117 14-Sep-2015 12:17

rugrat: Get rid of the water marks, What's the info button for lol.

Get rid of self promos during programs, these completely wreck the zone channel for me.

This !!!

Unbelievable these self-promos. Seems every ten mins there's a promo. And always the same promo.

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#1387120 14-Sep-2015 12:20

I like knowing what's coming up. I don't pay any attention to the Magazine or generally look for what's on Food TV, the only way I know is the promos.

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#1387166 14-Sep-2015 13:59

I'm an evolving consumer. I probably watch 50% of my "telly" via the internet now. I dont bother watching on devices like phone or tablet, screen is too small and sound is too tinny.
We like sport. Trying to ween husband off Movie channels and onto Netflix or Amazon. Otherwise we mostly watch TV1 or TV2.

I wish Sky would try harder to secure content where Kiwis are playing under our flag. Really peeved I couldn't watch Lydia Ko win her first major.

I would like Sky to provide the new decoders they were talking about a while back. My poxy multiroom basic decoder looks awful on an HDTV, and the EPG on those things is dire.

The Rugby channel is a premium channel but the picture quality is dreadful. So end up watching the rugby on Sky Sport, which is HD. Thats not right. Am seriously giving consideration to dropping the Rugby channel.

Sky is expensive, but I get why it is. The content and delivery is expensive and NZ doesnt have enough customers to bring the price per subscription down to something more reasonable. So lots and lots of money divided by not many people equals lots and lots of money per person.

I read somewhere about an upcoming feature where you can go backwards a week in the EPG to watch something you missed. Great idea but when is it coming?

I would love to be able to play recorded content on a different TV without all the unplugging and shifting things around.

I think we are likely to stick with Sky for a while, so it would be nice if they upped their game just a bit.

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