Foxtel halves its subscription cost

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steve2222

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Topic # 151955 11-Sep-2014 09:11

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/opinion-foxtel-halves-its-subscription-cost-but-is-it-a-case-of-too-little-too-late-20140909-10e1mf.html

Wouldn't it be nice if Sky halved the cost of their baisc package.

tdgeek

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Reply # 1126308 11-Sep-2014 09:31

I work for Spark, but my personal opinion is if there is enough competition to see an uplift in churn, they, and any business, would react. By price, and/or by adding more free content, and/or by deals for new subscribers. Its just the market at work.

trig42

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Reply # 1126311 11-Sep-2014 09:33

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I was reading this on Gizmodo last week.

I think, whilst they have brought down the price of their basic package, they have taken a few things out of it. I think things like the lifestyle channels and kids channels are no longer part of Basic (as they are with Sky). Maybe they were always like that?
I did read though, that the total price if you take the lot (sports/movies etc.) hasn't changed - it looks like Marketing fugue to me.

What would be great here is if Sky did the same, and you could choose whether you wanted Kids, or the Discovery/Nat Geo channels, or the Food/Living channels. Say $20 for basic, $10 each for those other channel sets etc.etc.

Lias

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Reply # 1126336 11-Sep-2014 10:03

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trig42: I was reading this on Gizmodo last week.

I think, whilst they have brought down the price of their basic package, they have taken a few things out of it. I think things like the lifestyle channels and kids channels are no longer part of Basic (as they are with Sky). Maybe they were always like that?
I did read though, that the total price if you take the lot (sports/movies etc.) hasn't changed - it looks like Marketing fugue to me.

What would be great here is if Sky did the same, and you could choose whether you wanted Kids, or the Discovery/Nat Geo channels, or the Food/Living channels. Say $20 for basic, $10 each for those other channel sets etc.etc.

They need to take it further. You need to be able to chose the individual channels, at say $1 a channel.

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Kyanar

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Reply # 1126783 11-Sep-2014 21:04

And Foxtel Play is still a giant rip. $50 a month for a VERY limited set of channels on my PS4? Yeah nah.

ZollyMonsta

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Reply # 1126791 11-Sep-2014 21:15

Projected population of Australia is currently over 23 million, vs the approx 4 million population of New Zealand.

A population that size means Foxtel can drop the price - they have. more subscribers than Sky would ever have.

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manaia

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Reply # 1126886 12-Sep-2014 05:47

trig42: II think, whilst they have brought down the price of their basic package, they have taken a few things out of it. I think things like the lifestyle channels and kids channels are no longer part of Basic (as they are with Sky). Maybe they were always like that?

I haven't lived there for a while but, yes, Foxtel's basic package used to be a lot more limited than SKY's

steve2222

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Reply # 1127058 12-Sep-2014 10:24

ZollyMonsta: Projected population of Australia is currently over 23 million, vs the approx 4 million population of New Zealand.

A population that size means Foxtel can drop the price - they have. more subscribers than Sky would ever have.

I would assume Sky are paying an appropriately lower cost for their programming purchases than Foxtel.

My undertanding is channels like CNBC are purchased on a price per subscriber basis so therefore I would assume Foxtel would be paying CNBC approximately 6x as much as Sky but on a per subscriber basis the same.

I agree there will be fixed costs that probaly are not that sensitive to population differences, but other costs (like programming) probably are much more variable.

Bee

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Reply # 1127069 12-Sep-2014 10:43

There is a package half the price of the sky basic - its called Igloo... :)

itxtme

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Reply # 1127088 12-Sep-2014 10:54

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ZollyMonsta: Projected population of Australia is currently over 23 million, vs the approx 4 million population of New Zealand.

A population that size means Foxtel can drop the price - they have. more subscribers than Sky would ever have.

Scales of economy will always have some affect on business, but when you are buying rights to media I wonder if that argument is a little less relevant as it is more about what any competition is willing to pay vs what is an acceptable price per subscriber.

Doing some crude quick math on Skys profit vs foxtel it appears Sky is more profitable (only just)

926 million profit vs 23 million people (40.26 per person)
165 million profit vs 4 million people ($41.25 per person)

** Based on Skys NZX data, and aon a news article on fox revenue (their data is 2013)

BrowneAction

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Reply # 1127267 12-Sep-2014 14:58

Or perhaps just letting people pay for what they want to watch. As I told them the last time i left sky, only dole bludgers would have the capability to sit on acouch all week and consume their money's work of the 70 or so channels that they make one pay for. I want to pay a couple of bucks per channel and no more. They have this country by the balls for league and rugby (for the most part), but when this can be gotten from Foxtel or somewhere else able to stream it then sell your sky shares before everyone else does, because it wont be profitable any longer.

Kyanar

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Reply # 1128129 14-Sep-2014 00:14

It already is able to be streamed by Foxtel: https://www.foxtel.com.au/foxtelplay/build/package?execution=e1s1

For you folks in NZ though, it's Geoblocked. It'll very likely stay that way too, considering Foxtel and Sky used to share a parent company (and still have longstanding content and technology sharing agreements).

(Side note: Sky's SANZAR contract expires end of 2015 rugby season. Start saving your coinage folks, and let's see if you can outbid Sky for the rights!)