Sky shares plunge

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surfisup1000

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# 182566 21-Oct-2015 17:21

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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11532802

I was surprised to see their shares decline by 32% over the last year -- didn't realise it was by so much.

Interesting to see how sky perform in future.

Sky say only be a small number of subscribers will ditch them after the world cup. I think it will be more significant than that as many people who wanted to disconnect in the last year have held out until after the cup finishes.

I guess Sky are doing what they can with streaming -- but, given the plethora of streaming options there must be some failures.

Sky say they can double content without using more bandwidth -- i wonder if that is by using h265/hevc .

No more yearly sky letters for me ha ha ...."due to the increased cost of programming your subscription fee will rise by...."

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# 1410608 21-Oct-2015 17:24

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Profit warning of 10% unexpected by analysts (most had flat profit for FY16) - no surprise the market marched it down 10% today.

hairy1

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# 1410611 21-Oct-2015 17:41

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They had the opportunity to sew up the streaming market years ago. We have been through numerous streaming offerings over the years but all have been underdeveloped (either hard to use or unreliable during big sports games, or both) which has caused problems with uptake.

I have no doubt the hybrid Sky TV / internet product is going to be good but it should have been in living rooms 5 years ago. I can't remember how long the black mysky has been on release and has been a crippled version of what it could be.

Cheers, Matt.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

khull

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# 1410614 21-Oct-2015 17:45

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Those grey haired execs (hopefully they read boards like this one) are being ostriches, ignoring a very critical problem that the cable networks overseas are experiencing. Given that people on this board help family members and others get on streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and even free streaming services, it won't be long before Sky revisit their strategy. My guess is buying up another ISP to compete

Relying on live sport is madness.

mattwnz

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# 1410615 21-Oct-2015 17:45

hairy1: They had the opportunity to sew up the streaming market years ago. We have been through numerous streaming offerings over the years but all have been underdeveloped (either hard to use or unreliable during big sports games, or both) which has caused problems with uptake.

I have no doubt the hybrid Sky TV / internet product is going to be good but it should have been in living rooms 5 years ago. I can't remember how long the black mysky has been on release and has been a crippled version of what it could be.

Cheers, Matt.

I think it can be very difficult for a company to change their model, when they have invested a lot in a different platform and older model. It is something that has slowly crept up on them. If we didn't have fibre now thoughout much of the country, and improving technologies on the copper network, then their model could have continued. But I guess this why you hire experts, and pay them the big bucks, to play for the future.

But overall people are very lazy. Someone on 100k per year who likes their sport, and can get most of it on sky are unlikely to move to a streaming platform at the moment. But that will change as streaming becomes easier, and more content is shared around different providers.

mattwnz

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# 1410616 21-Oct-2015 17:51

hairy1: They had the opportunity to sew up the streaming market years ago. We have been through numerous streaming offerings over the years but all have been underdeveloped (either hard to use or unreliable during big sports games, or both) which has caused problems with uptake.

I have no doubt the hybrid Sky TV / internet product is going to be good but it should have been in living rooms 5 years ago. I can't remember how long the black mysky has been on release and has been a crippled version of what it could be.

Cheers, Matt.

They seem to have got sidetracked with the igloo box too, which was a sort of streaming box. But it was very clunky, and difficult to use, and crashes regularly. I got one cheap as a freeview box, but it is very average.

Jaxson

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# 1410617 21-Oct-2015 17:56

Milking that cow too much, and the worlds passed by.

sbiddle

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# 1410618 21-Oct-2015 17:59

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surfisup1000:
Sky say they can double content without using more bandwidth -- i wonder if that is by using h265/hevc .

Nope. They're just moving fully to H.264 once the new STB rollout is complete.

Sky don't care about picture quality though - just look at Prime TV on DVB-T as proof of that. I saw a lot of people complaining about the poor picture during the All Black's game.

ockel

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# 1410627 21-Oct-2015 18:22

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mattwnz:
hairy1: They had the opportunity to sew up the streaming market years ago. We have been through numerous streaming offerings over the years but all have been underdeveloped (either hard to use or unreliable during big sports games, or both) which has caused problems with uptake.

I have no doubt the hybrid Sky TV / internet product is going to be good but it should have been in living rooms 5 years ago. I can't remember how long the black mysky has been on release and has been a crippled version of what it could be.

Cheers, Matt.

I think it can be very difficult for a company to change their model, when they have invested a lot in a different platform and older model. It is something that has slowly crept up on them. If we didn't have fibre now thoughout much of the country, and improving technologies on the copper network, then their model could have continued. But I guess this why you hire experts, and pay them the big bucks, to play for the future.

But overall people are very lazy. Someone on 100k per year who likes their sport, and can get most of it on sky are unlikely to move to a streaming platform at the moment. But that will change as streaming becomes easier, and more content is shared around different providers.

True that people are lazy - how many households pay the privilege of a landline and dont use it? And streaming is relatively easy now but theres still the economic value.

I can only do a single case study. Not a rugby fan so the RWC is meaningless but I am a league boof-head and a foam-at-the-mouth NFL fan.
And the analysis this year went something like this: Do I drop Sky Sport (at $35/mth - including the HD ticket) and replace it with streaming at $10/week? No brainer even if the quality was identical.
And when NFL Gamepass was free (before the NFL introduced global pricing to stop US users using VPN to watch for free via other markets) it just wasnt attractive enough vs the broadcast version. Now it works out to be $15/week vs Sky Sport at $35/month.

So I'm going to be really interested to see how the NZ market changes over the next year - "RWC is over, do I drop Sky and pay my $15/week for Fanpass? Or do I give up watching the Super 15? Or do I do nothing?"

This is a truly fascinating time to watch how markets develop and react. Truly, truly fascinating

Apsattv

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# 1410743 21-Oct-2015 22:25

sbiddle:
surfisup1000:
Sky say they can double content without using more bandwidth -- i wonder if that is by using h265/hevc .

Nope. They're just moving fully to H.264 once the new STB rollout is complete.

Sky don't care about picture quality though - just look at Prime TV on DVB-T as proof of that. I saw a lot of people complaining about the poor picture during the All Black's game.

There is a problem coming. When Sky swaps out all the older decoders and also switches all t.p to DVB S2, anyone with an older Freeview receiver will lose Prime as they won't handle dvb s2 and mpg4.

richms

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# 1410753 21-Oct-2015 22:51

Apsattv:
There is a problem coming. When Sky swaps out all the older decoders and also switches all t.p to DVB S2, anyone with an older Freeview receiver will lose Prime as they won't handle dvb s2 and mpg4.

They can always do the decoder deal again like they used to do for people that couldnt get prime off UHF. Great way to get a box into peoples houses which hopefully will already have wifi in them and a quick easy upgrade path to full sky with just a few button presses and putting in payment details. Something they could have done with igloo if they didn just run it as an obstruction to more freeview by camping on their legacy UHF spectrum.

Richard rich.ms

surfisup1000

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# 1410755 21-Oct-2015 22:56

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I just read that the sky board are getting a 27% increase in their fee pool... So 13% decrease in share price gets them a 27% fee increase.

They really should try to lose more money next year. Sky shareholders are rather gullible to approve such an increase.

rlevis

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# 1410756 21-Oct-2015 22:56

I was under the impression Prime on Freeview was a separate transmission/frequency on the satellite. Am I wrong?

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grant_k

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# 1410772 22-Oct-2015 00:57

rlevis: I was under the impression Prime on Freeview was a separate transmission/frequency on the satellite. Am I wrong?

Here is the Service Info. from my Vu+ Duo:

It shows that the 12.707GHz transponder is leased by Sky rather than Freeview.

This page on Lyngsat says the same: http://www.lyngsat.com/Optus-D1.html

As can be seen from the Lyngsat page, there are encrypted Sky channels on the same transponder, so once they change the operating mode to DVB-S2, the Prime signal will be affected as Apsattv says above.

mattwnz

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# 1410774 22-Oct-2015 01:22

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sbiddle:
surfisup1000:
Sky say they can double content without using more bandwidth -- i wonder if that is by using h265/hevc .

Nope. They're just moving fully to H.264 once the new STB rollout is complete.

Sky don't care about picture quality though - just look at Prime TV on DVB-T as proof of that. I saw a lot of people complaining about the poor picture during the All Black's game.

It is also somewhat ironic and backward, that 4 years ago, NZers enjoyed HD coverage of the RWC, via free to air channels. Now most watchers are watching the RWC in SD on prime. I mean we have had HD on freeview for at least 8 years now, but prime is still in SD. I think many people think the quality of picture on prime is what it is on sky. I mean they use prime to advertise to advertise sky channels, so you would think that they would want to show the best quality sharpest picture possible in that advertising.

BarTender

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# 1410790 22-Oct-2015 07:41

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mattwnz:
sbiddle:
surfisup1000:
Sky say they can double content without using more bandwidth -- i wonder if that is by using h265/hevc .

Nope. They're just moving fully to H.264 once the new STB rollout is complete.

Sky don't care about picture quality though - just look at Prime TV on DVB-T as proof of that. I saw a lot of people complaining about the poor picture during the All Black's game.

It is also somewhat ironic and backward, that 4 years ago, NZers enjoyed HD coverage of the RWC, via free to air channels. Now most watchers are watching the RWC in SD on prime. I mean we have had HD on freeview for at least 8 years now, but prime is still in SD. I think many people think the quality of picture on prime is what it is on sky. I mean they use prime to advertise to advertise sky channels, so you would think that they would want to show the best quality sharpest picture possible in that advertising.

Hence why I always download Doctor Who from the UK, as it's just not the same watching DW in SD.

It's not like Prime couldn't be HD on DVB-T but... it's not. So we know where Sky's priorities are at.

and

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