Vodafone / SKY merger

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#1725156 23-Feb-2017 13:50

Jas777:

tdgeek:

DickDastardly:

I see in the news reports on the Herald, John Fellet looks like he is even grumpier than his normal "sparking" demeanour...time for a radical rethink of the business model at Sky HQ methinks...!

Subscribers dropping, investors running for the hills, customer service in disarray, package inflexibility, shaking their existing customers upside down for every last cent (although Sky call it 'upselling")....Sky very quickly doesn't look to be in such good shape...

Its the same as it was last year and next year. Subscriber numbers are falling, by small amounts, but it is significant. What I don't get is the never-ending comparisons with Netflix and other SVOD. Basic is a perfectly relevant member of Pay TV, if they removed the sports subsidy and made it $20. There is very very little overlap with NF, LB, Neon.

So its ONLY about sport. Whoever provides sport will have to do what Sky does, be forced to pay a great deal for it. There is no getting around that. Overseas sports providers charge a similar amount to NZ$60, which is what Fanpass costs and what Sport would probably cost if the subsidy as taken off Basic. If Netflix took over sport in NZ from Sky they would have to charge that. If they took half, it would be charged at lower rates, as would Sky, but many of us would need both, the UK situation.

Best to talk numbers, than emotion.

So true about Netflix.

If you were going to compare Netflix and other SVOD to Sport on SKY it would be either all the games shown one after the other even though they were played hours or days ago or 5 or 6 hours of live content a week but the ability to watch games from the last 10 years to fill up the rest.

The other thing that will happen is that if you like 4 sports say it will be at least $20 per sport per month and you might still only get a subset of the sport.

yep. Sport is a whole different issue, and thats where the Sky hate comes from, IMHO. You can't work around what Sky has to pay. All in one place does give rise to the M word. But it also can be efficient, as long as they are rorting us, and the ROI in the financial reports shows they aren't.

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#1725166 23-Feb-2017 14:06

Sky should bundle a fanpass app with freeviewplus capable tv's and allow pay per view content via app. Potential huge market ignored.

Glad to see the merger blocked, don't want a TWC style monster here in NZ

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#1725167 23-Feb-2017 14:07

Now also imagine if/when Sky join the SVOD fully with HD streams; 800K subs streaming over the internet at once in HD... Is our internet actually ready for this, is rain fade going to be replaced by 'buffering' as the new hate word?

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#1725188 23-Feb-2017 14:18

Benoire:

Now also imagine if/when Sky join the SVOD fully with HD streams; 800K subs streaming over the internet at once in HD... Is our internet actually ready for this, is rain fade going to be replaced by 'buffering' as the new hate word?

LOl yep. Updated from 1980's tech, then your right, its not like it was before. Unknown what the effect on local bandwidth would be. A cheap Optus fee would be better for everyone

mattwnz

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#1725196 23-Feb-2017 14:27

I think the issue with sky is, they are are getting beaten by a newer technology that is a lot cheaper, and potentially better content. Their neon service potentially could compete, however they would essentially have to canabilise there satellite service to do this. But that would involve using the sky brand. Then they may not lose customers, but the revenue would be greatly reduced. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have had it good for a long time, but businesses sometimes are forced to change when technology changes. You just need to look at how Spark has adapted, they have had one of the most rocky roads over the last decade, but they have recovered well. The thing is sky is not even ad free, which at one time was their main selling point. The only reason some still have it is because they Are the only providers of much of the live sport content, which has also resulted in a lot of people being turned off watching sport. . They don't need to merge to combine with an ISP either, and as they have said, one way or another they will be by working with The ISP.

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#1725198 23-Feb-2017 14:30

tdgeek:
Benoire:

Now also imagine if/when Sky join the SVOD fully with HD streams; 800K subs streaming over the internet at once in HD... Is our internet actually ready for this, is rain fade going to be replaced by 'buffering' as the new hate word?

LOl yep. Updated from 1980's tech, then your right, its not like it was before. Unknown what the effect on local bandwidth would be. A cheap Optus fee would be better for everyone

The thing is that a 800k subscriber base is tiny, when you compare it to many YouTube channels. Many one person YouTube channels exceed that by many multiples. They may not have the same revenue amount per subscriber, but they potentially have the same reach.

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#1725201 23-Feb-2017 14:32

loceff13:

Sky should bundle a fanpass app with freeviewplus capable tv's and allow pay per view content via app. Potential huge market ignored.

Samsung TVs have such an app. Typical Sky though, mostly all it outputs is server error messages. I think I saw 5 minutes max of video before first crash and gave up.

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#1725205 23-Feb-2017 14:40

mattwnz:
tdgeek:

Benoire:

Now also imagine if/when Sky join the SVOD fully with HD streams; 800K subs streaming over the internet at once in HD... Is our internet actually ready for this, is rain fade going to be replaced by 'buffering' as the new hate word?

LOl yep. Updated from 1980's tech, then your right, its not like it was before. Unknown what the effect on local bandwidth would be. A cheap Optus fee would be better for everyone

The thing is that a 800k subscriber base is tiny, when you compare it to many YouTube channels. Many one person YouTube channels exceed that by many multiples. They may not have the same revenue amount per subscriber, but they potentially have the same reach.

I mean 800,000 people using streaming for their Sky viewing hours

Benoire

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#1725206 23-Feb-2017 14:41

mattwnz:
tdgeek:

Benoire:

Now also imagine if/when Sky join the SVOD fully with HD streams; 800K subs streaming over the internet at once in HD... Is our internet actually ready for this, is rain fade going to be replaced by 'buffering' as the new hate word?

LOl yep. Updated from 1980's tech, then your right, its not like it was before. Unknown what the effect on local bandwidth would be. A cheap Optus fee would be better for everyone

The thing is that a 800k subscriber base is tiny, when you compare it to many YouTube channels. Many one person YouTube channels exceed that by many multiples. They may not have the same revenue amount per subscriber, but they potentially have the same reach.

Yes its tiny, but right now, with the population of NZ, how many are actually streaming at peak time vs watching FTA/SKY? 800K could be a huge increase to bandwidth usage.

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#1725212 23-Feb-2017 14:45

"Sky TV is really bad and I hope they go out of business" might be the only topic that takes the heat off "Vodafone is really bad and I they go out of business"!

To me, this topic looks like a perfect storm of aggrieved customers and ex-customers with many motivated by determined and sometimes spiteful pessimism. If Sky TV's prospects are really that bad then I'm quite sure that they would be presenting something like a new "wild west" scenario to the Commmerce Commmission - fear and uncertainty are usually good motivators.

If Sky TV goes under NZ viewers will generally lose good options and have to pay more for worse options. I much prefer the current and proposed consolidation over increasing fragmentation.

Sky TV's biggest issue, it seems to me, is their commitment to satellite broadcasting. It was needed to keep costs down but is clearly outdated technology for most of us who have access to high-speed broadband. But there are many people who can't replace satellite broadcast with good broadband so it is good that they still have options until at least 2018. I don't think Sky TV has done too badly here because it is notoriously difficult to predict the right time to move from old technology. Even if they didn't choose the 2018 end for the current satellite contract, they've only gone a year or two past the date they should have moved to streaming to most of us. That is a better timeframe than most businesses get hogtied to.

As a Vodafone customer, I think that I will continue to receive good deals for Sky TV whether the merger goes ahead or not. I was determined to leave Vodafone cable for UFB but the deals have been very attractive, both those I've taken up and those I haven't. That looks like continuing.

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#1725222 23-Feb-2017 15:01

Hammerer:

"Sky TV is really bad and I hope they go out of business" might be the only topic that takes the heat off "Vodafone is really bad and I they go out of business"!

To me, this topic looks like a perfect storm of aggrieved customers and ex-customers with many motivated by determined and sometimes spiteful pessimism. If Sky TV's prospects are really that bad then I'm quite sure that they would be presenting something like a new "wild west" scenario to the Commmerce Commmission - fear and uncertainty are usually good motivators.

If Sky TV goes under NZ viewers will generally lose good options and have to pay more for worse options. I much prefer the current and proposed consolidation over increasing fragmentation.

Sky TV's biggest issue, it seems to me, is their commitment to satellite broadcasting. It was needed to keep costs down but is clearly outdated technology for most of us who have access to high-speed broadband. But there are many people who can't replace satellite broadcast with good broadband so it is good that they still have options until at least 2018. I don't think Sky TV has done too badly here because it is notoriously difficult to predict the right time to move from old technology. Even if they didn't choose the 2018 end for the current satellite contract, they've only gone a year or two past the date they should have moved to streaming to most of us. That is a better timeframe than most businesses get hogtied to.

As a Vodafone customer, I think that I will continue to receive good deals for Sky TV whether the merger goes ahead or not. I was determined to leave Vodafone cable for UFB but the deals have been very attractive, both those I've taken up and those I haven't. That looks like continuing.

Is the current deal on VF (cable) still TV Basic + Receiver + HD ticket for $49 ?

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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#1725293 23-Feb-2017 16:16

Benoire:

mattwnz:
tdgeek:

Benoire:

Now also imagine if/when Sky join the SVOD fully with HD streams; 800K subs streaming over the internet at once in HD... Is our internet actually ready for this, is rain fade going to be replaced by 'buffering' as the new hate word?

LOl yep. Updated from 1980's tech, then your right, its not like it was before. Unknown what the effect on local bandwidth would be. A cheap Optus fee would be better for everyone

The thing is that a 800k subscriber base is tiny, when you compare it to many YouTube channels. Many one person YouTube channels exceed that by many multiples. They may not have the same revenue amount per subscriber, but they potentially have the same reach.

Yes its tiny, but right now, with the population of NZ, how many are actually streaming at peak time vs watching FTA/SKY? 800K could be a huge increase to bandwidth usage.

There are multicast products available to address this issue.

Also newer compression standards help too.

Of course this only applies when the content is say live or scheduled (like sports).

mattwnz

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#1725298 23-Feb-2017 16:39

Benoire:

mattwnz:
tdgeek:

Benoire:

Now also imagine if/when Sky join the SVOD fully with HD streams; 800K subs streaming over the internet at once in HD... Is our internet actually ready for this, is rain fade going to be replaced by 'buffering' as the new hate word?

LOl yep. Updated from 1980's tech, then your right, its not like it was before. Unknown what the effect on local bandwidth would be. A cheap Optus fee would be better for everyone

The thing is that a 800k subscriber base is tiny, when you compare it to many YouTube channels. Many one person YouTube channels exceed that by many multiples. They may not have the same revenue amount per subscriber, but they potentially have the same reach.

Yes its tiny, but right now, with the population of NZ, how many are actually streaming at peak time vs watching FTA/SKY? 800K could be a huge increase to bandwidth usage.

Many people who have sky subscriptions, actually hardly watch it. I know a lot of elderly who have sky basic, and they say they only watch it once a week. I think the sport watchers will be the people who create the highest demand on it. Movies not so much these days.

Considering the capacity of fibre, I can't see that being a problem. Especially as they could offer SD as the default package which hardly uses anything. They could also have CDNs around NZ with content, so it isn't all coming from the same location.

But the fact is, many people are already watching ondemand video, both paid and ondemand. That number may not change by a large amount, as sky subscribers are already watching on demand programs via other sources. This is somewhat proven by the fact that their subscriber base is dropping, even though NZs population is increasing. So subscribers of sky, don't soley watch sky, they also watch ondemand. Many elderly have ipads, and stream TVNZ ondemand, and that number would be growing all the time, and will eventually hit a peak. The thing that will create the biggest demand on the network though will be 4 and 8k videos.

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#1725308 23-Feb-2017 16:59

mattwnz:

[snip] The thing that will create the biggest demand on the network though will be 4 and 8k videos.

Nope the thing that will create the biggest network impact will be if an OTT video service using IP distribution signs a major live sports deal for a tier 1 NZ sport. If the sort of thing that scares the hell outta me and excites me at the same time.

I'm very confident our network could scale to support it if required.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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#1725368 23-Feb-2017 19:29

MikeB4:

Is the current deal on VF (cable) still TV Basic + Receiver + HD ticket for $49 ?

No idea what's current.

I'm more than half way through one year of Sky Basic + Sky Sports + Vodafone box + HD (including Prime HD) for $49 per month. It was a smooth changeover from Vodafone TV. All recordings continued. The only Freeview channel replaced was Prime so recordings had to be rescheduled.

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