Sky shares plunge

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mattwnz

20147 posts

Uber Geek

#1411311 22-Oct-2015 18:36

Spyware:
MikeB4:
Spyware: You mean Igloo was a joint venture.

As of today igloo is still an "is" and not a "was"

What do you mean??, Sky bought remaining TVNZ share for a $1 years ago.

Yes, I believe it was developed as a joint venture, but it is not anymore, and solely a sky venture these days. TVNZ did at one stage provided special channels for sky such as 'Heartland' which played old NZ made content, much of it paid for my the taxpayer via the licensing fee, to Sky. But I don't think that channel is around anymore. To be fair, Sky has had a good run in NZ to date. But the market has changed. It is not too dissimilar to Telecom, prior to unbundling, where their shares plummeted after the government decided to unbundle the network. But Telecom didn't see that coming, whereas, Sky has seem this coming for several years.

dafman

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#1411329 22-Oct-2015 19:14

JimmyH: They have lost sight of much of their core market, and not responded to emerging competition.

People join Sky for one of two reasons: they are sports fanatics and/or they like to enjoy quality entertainment.

I'm not so much in the sports camp, other than rugby, but they appear to have lost a number of the key sports that appealed to people (think English Premier League and a lot of Golf) that appealed to the sports group. I think after the RWC they will lose a few more.

I'm more in the good entertainment camp.

On the entertainment front people want good content and an enjoyable viewing experience. They still (mostly) have content, but seem to have lost sight of needing to provide an enjoyable experience if they want to get circa $100/month out of people. The picture quality they provide is poor - over compressed, dirty great logos smeared over it, and some very strange picture formatting decisions (both letterboxed and pillarboxed in some cases!). Notwithstanding the poor picture quality, the viewing experience is even worse - other than a few channels they:

interrupt the programming constantly with ad/promo breaks, worse than Freeview in some cases
compress the credits to half the screen to shout more promos at you
have little spinning logos pushing MySky over pop up every movie; and
keep putting banners across the bottom of the screen promoting coming shoiws while content is playing.
Netflix don't do this. And they are much cheaper. Not all of Sky's woes are technology drives, crazy decisions to treat subscribers with contempt and trash their viewing experience are a large part of it IMO.

If I was a shareholder I would be looking for some new directors, fairly sharpish......

I couldn't have put it better. For everything, there is a season. Sky's season passed while they were too busy gouging, and probably sleeping. Bye Sky.

mattwnz

20147 posts

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#1411331 22-Oct-2015 19:21

Maybe that is why they were never regulated, because the regulators could see that technology would change the market , which it has. But they do still have a lot of exclusive content in NZ, and content is the key.

MikeB4

18435 posts

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#1411333 22-Oct-2015 19:32

dafman:
JimmyH: They have lost sight of much of their core market, and not responded to emerging competition.

People join Sky for one of two reasons: they are sports fanatics and/or they like to enjoy quality entertainment.

I'm not so much in the sports camp, other than rugby, but they appear to have lost a number of the key sports that appealed to people (think English Premier League and a lot of Golf) that appealed to the sports group. I think after the RWC they will lose a few more.

I'm more in the good entertainment camp.

On the entertainment front people want good content and an enjoyable viewing experience. They still (mostly) have content, but seem to have lost sight of needing to provide an enjoyable experience if they want to get circa $100/month out of people. The picture quality they provide is poor - over compressed, dirty great logos smeared over it, and some very strange picture formatting decisions (both letterboxed and pillarboxed in some cases!). Notwithstanding the poor picture quality, the viewing experience is even worse - other than a few channels they:

interrupt the programming constantly with ad/promo breaks, worse than Freeview in some cases

compress the credits to half the screen to shout more promos at you

have little spinning logos pushing MySky over pop up every movie; and

keep putting banners across the bottom of the screen promoting coming shoiws while content is playing.

Netflix don't do this. And they are much cheaper. Not all of Sky's woes are technology drives, crazy decisions to treat subscribers with contempt and trash their viewing experience are a large part of it IMO.

If I was a shareholder I would be looking for some new directors, fairly sharpish......

I couldn't have put it better. For everything, there is a season. Sky's season passed while they were too busy gouging, and probably sleeping. Bye Sky.

It is premature to say "bye Sky" . They still posted a profit of $170million and assets of $1.9billion

JimmyH

2886 posts

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#1411435 22-Oct-2015 22:24

Yes. It's too soon to write them off. They are still big, profitable, and have substantial financial resources to call on. They still have a chance to adapt, and the wherewithal to pull it off.

But Telecom looked unassailable in its day too, and tanked rapidly as technology and competition destroyed their toll call margins and ludicrous mobile phone charging.

In my book, unless Sky change fairly nimbly they are done for, and that might happen faster than many people think. Technology and the landscape is changing very fast and, although they are rolling out some new services, they still don't appear to get it.

If they did, they would be focusing on their core customer base and their experience to try and hang on to their existing cash flows. Removing the interruptions for promos, dialing back or eliminating the logos, and at least getting aspect ratios right would be a good start.

Then they should start focusing on their technology, and making sure their boxes deliver a good viewing experience. They are sort of doing this, but it has the smell of a belated response to what everyone else is doing, and I'm still not sure they understand what their customers want or how to be innovative in delivering it.

For instance, I like many here have a modern set up. Several TVs, network, media players. If I'm going to continue pay $100+ to make Sky my primary source of media (which it has to be to justify the price), then it should be fun and easy to watch and use, and I should want a MySky as my entertainment hub. It isn't, and I don't.

As well as the points I raised earlier (picture quality, dump the ad breaks, dump other program interruptions and distractions) the technology should be easier to use:

Why can't I watch recorded shows on other TV's across the LAN using proven technology like DLNA? It's certainly not meaningfully to prevent copying, I could do that easily with off the shelf parts I already own if I wanted to do that.
Why isn't there a 30 sec and a 60 sec skip button on the MySky remote?
Why isn't Freeview Plus integrated into their boxes?
Why won't a MySky see and play stored content on my NAS, my computer, or another MySky?

Most of these are easy and cheap (eg firmware changes), or even free (remove promo interruptions) for them to to do. Yet they stubbornly won't.

For these and other reasons I have declined their offer of a free MySky install, and it's more than likely I will cancel entirely after the Christmas break in about 8 weeks, when I finish my planned upgrade to my entertainment setup. Netflix (US), iPlayer and Hulu etc are just a cheaper and more compelling alternative.

If I was a major shareholder I would want changes at a board level. If I was a director, I would be disposing of a number of the senior management who seel well past their "best by" date. And I would be looking to see this happen quickly.

wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1411790 23-Oct-2015 13:12

JimmyH:
If I was a shareholder I would be looking for some new directors, fairly sharpish......

They've added Derek Handley to the BoD; surely that is enough to save them?

wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1411797 23-Oct-2015 13:18

JimmyH:
Then they should start focusing on their technology, and making sure their boxes deliver a good viewing experience. They are sort of doing this, but it has the smell of a belated response to what everyone else is doing, and I'm still not sure they understand what their customers want or how to be innovative in delivering it.

I completely agree with what you've written above. A simple, easy to use "home hub" concept would be a perfect product for them to market. As hard as we've tried to make Plex/Kodi etc. simple and easy to use for our parents or even techies who don't want to have to fiddle endlessly with software in the evenings, nothing has really worked well. Proprietary products such as Roku and FireTV while relatively simple, have proven to be inflexible. This leaves an opportunity for Sky, however the window of opportunity is closing fast.

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Jaxson

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#1411833 23-Oct-2015 14:04

That's where the likes of a PS3 or Xbox One come into play I think.

It's annoying in some respects, as I still prefer satellite delivery frankly. It's pretty reliable and I don't pay for data that way.

No one has really successfully merged the two so far.

Consuls are better at the streaming side of things, but have never done particularly well with live TV integrations.
NZ Freeviews blatant middle finger to sharing the EIT guide data meant NZ couldn't benefit from overseas products in this area, such as Microsoft media centre on a PC or Play TV on the PS3 etc. TIVO only half got around this by supplying their own EPG data via a data connection.

Chromecast is the other game in the mix, and at a competitive price.

ObidiahSlope

260 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1412865 23-Oct-2015 15:05

Things are going to get get worse for SKY. How so? Wider uptake of fibre and wider usage of IPV6 networking.

The internet is at its heart a point to point data transfer method. The phasing out IPV4 could do multicasting(one to many) but it was a difficult cludge so it very rarely used.

IPV6 while still primarily a point to point protocol has multicast capability. For example a geek wishing to broadcast his childs T-ball game with an IPV6 capable camera and internet connection could do so without much bother.

Just immagine a rapcious proffesional sport code wishing to maximise revenue by bypassing the broadcaster and selling the game directly over the internet.

http://ipv6friday.org/blog/2011/12/ipv6-multicast/

Obsequious hypocrite

andrew027

1286 posts

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#1412880 23-Oct-2015 15:26

In the advertising for the new Sky box, it is being strongly associated a new On Demand service which includes "a huge selection of SKY shows... movies and box sets available for you to browse and download to your planner to watch when you like" (no sport). It sounds like On Demand is being set up like a streaming site full of content Sky has the rights to (a la NetFlix, Lightbox) but instead of having to watch as you stream, you could "stream" a whole season of your favourite show to your MySky box's hard drive then watch each episode as it suits.

Is it confirmed that the new box includes wifi? It could be useful if that was an option for loading content in addition to satellite - it would put Sky on the road (albeit only a couple of steps down the road) to competing in the streaming market.

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek

#1412896 23-Oct-2015 16:05

andrew027: In the advertising for the new Sky box, it is being strongly associated a new On Demand service which includes "a huge selection of SKY shows... movies and box sets available for you to browse and download to your planner to watch when you like" (no sport). It sounds like On Demand is being set up like a streaming site full of content Sky has the rights to (a la NetFlix, Lightbox) but instead of having to watch as you stream, you could "stream" a whole season of your favourite show to your MySky box's hard drive then watch each episode as it suits.

Is it confirmed that the new box includes wifi? It could be useful if that was an option for loading content in addition to satellite - it would put Sky on the road (albeit only a couple of steps down the road) to competing in the streaming market.

No the new box doesnt have wifi. Sky supply a wifi connection device (Airties 4400) or PoE or Ethernet cable for connection of current box (black MySky) to your router. Only requires a new box if you have the old digital decoder or the silver MySky.

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Spyware

3761 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1412908 23-Oct-2015 16:32

Incorrect, new box does have wifi.

Spark Max Fibre using Mikrotik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+, CRS125-24G-1S, Unifi UAP, U6-Pro, UAP-AC-M-Pro, Apple TV 4K (2022), Apple TV 4K (2017), iPad Air 1st gen, iPad Air 4th gen, iPhone 13, SkyNZ3151 (the white box). If it doesn't move then it's data cabled.

wingbat45

233 posts

Master Geek

#1412999 23-Oct-2015 19:27

ockel:
andrew027: In the advertising for the new Sky box, it is being strongly associated a new On Demand service which includes "a huge selection of SKY shows... movies and box sets available for you to browse and download to your planner to watch when you like" (no sport). It sounds like On Demand is being set up like a streaming site full of content Sky has the rights to (a la NetFlix, Lightbox) but instead of having to watch as you stream, you could "stream" a whole season of your favourite show to your MySky box's hard drive then watch each episode as it suits.

Is it confirmed that the new box includes wifi? It could be useful if that was an option for loading content in addition to satellite - it would put Sky on the road (albeit only a couple of steps down the road) to competing in the streaming market.

No the new box doesnt have wifi. Sky supply a wifi connection device (Airties 4400) or PoE or Ethernet cable for connection of current box (black MySky) to your router. Only requires a new box if you have the old digital decoder or the silver MySky.

Yes it has wifi, I have seen a working one.

The connection devices are for the mysky+ and myskyHDi

Also there is sports content in the on demand section I have been told

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