Sky blames piracy for lost customers. Sky: it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Sky blames piracy for lost customers. Sky: it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

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#1855059 30-Aug-2017 07:17

bagheera:

shk292:

I think it's also a VFM thing. When the choice was analogue SD TV for free or Sky digital for $80 per month, the $80 was OK - especially if you looked at the whole package including what was then the best PVR available.

Now for your Sky subs you can get Freeview digital hd (free), Netflix HD on multi devices ($15?), Lightbox (free or <$20), BBC iplayer if you're reasonably techie, and still have $60 left every month. So, if you don't want live sport, or lots of sport, dropping Sky has become a bit of a no-brainer. I subscribed for about eight years then stopped four years ago, bought a Panasonic PVR, sorted out internet streaming to the TV and haven't looked back. Even TVNZ on demand is quite good now, and Chromecast is cheap and easy.

The extra hassle factors Sky adds like ads, incessant trailers, DRM, limited viewing locations, limited recording storage etc just make the decision easier.

I don't think Sky are rorting, I think they just haven't moved with the times and with the better options available they represent poor VFM except for sports fans.

most differently - one of the reason i said sport was because that is the only reason i can see why you would have sky or live somewhere internet sucks, but that is a low % of people now days

Also think the icing on the cake of FU to my customer enjoyment, we just want the $$$$$$ was the ad between the haka and the start of the rugby match - who in the right mind would think that would go down well, and not beep off all your customers.

If it was the ad I saw, Sky was thanking its customers, as we are paying the sport, as subscribers, and thanks to us for supporting NZ Rugby

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#1855147 30-Aug-2017 10:05

tdgeek:

Optus charge for HD. Say 33% have HD. Thats $3-33 off the bottom line, a 25% drop, thats significant. Which highlights my point, there is not much wiggle room, its not the cash cow that many think it is.

Yet, I note they do seem to have the wiggle room to drop subs by $10/mo for those who are customers of Vodafone. In fact, they are actively promoting this.

tdgeek:

Your list of bad things is not a big deal for me. Ads are everywhere. Trailers, I dont seem to notice them being incessant. DRM, dont have a need to bypass it, Limited viewing locations. Well TV is stuck in living room, SkyGo is anywhere in NZ as is Sky OnDemand. Storage, mine is only 14% free due to a hoarder

If I am paying over $100/mo (which I was before I started dropping packages) then including shouty ad breaks in programming (as well asshrinking the credits to play loud promos over the top of them) that ruin the viewing experience is insulting. I can cope with ads between shows but, when there are alternatives, I'm not paying that much money to be treated with that level of contempt in return.

They DRM is irritating. I did have Sky everywhere (living room where the decoder is, bedroom, study, spare room and tablet streamed over my LAN off the analog outputs) until the decoder upgrade broke it. For no good reason, I'm paying $100/m+ and can no longer watch the programming in the bedroom.

Ironically, it is trivially defeatable, and I have the kit to do so, but it requires yet another powerpoint and more cable spaghetti to do so. As well as softening the distributed signal materially. What it doesn't prevent, is recording in HD off the HDMI outputs, which is equally trivial to do. So they have gratuitously degraded the utility of a subscription, without doing *anything* to prevent programming being recorded and archived in high quality.

I hung on to Sky to see the end of Game of Thrones. According to the call I had last night from Spark, the place I live is apparently getting fibre cabled past it in about 3 months. Unless Sky has materially fixed its value proposition by then I'm cancelling the sub I have had since 1996 and moving to a Lightbox/Netflix/Hulu+/iPlayer solution. Which will be much cheaper and, unlike Sky will work around the house and in HD.

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#1855158 30-Aug-2017 10:23

JimmyH:

tdgeek:

Optus charge for HD. Say 33% have HD. Thats $3-33 off the bottom line, a 25% drop, thats significant. Which highlights my point, there is not much wiggle room, its not the cash cow that many think it is.

Yet, I note they do seem to have the wiggle room to drop subs by $10/mo for those who are customers of Vodafone. In fact, they are actively promoting this.

And I am on the $50 plan, whats that got to do with it?

tdgeek:

Your list of bad things is not a big deal for me. Ads are everywhere. Trailers, I dont seem to notice them being incessant. DRM, dont have a need to bypass it, Limited viewing locations. Well TV is stuck in living room, SkyGo is anywhere in NZ as is Sky OnDemand. Storage, mine is only 14% free due to a hoarder

If I am paying over $100/mo (which I was before I started dropping packages) then including shouty ad breaks in programming (as well asshrinking the credits to play loud promos over the top of them) that ruin the viewing experience is insulting. I can cope with ads between shows but, when there are alternatives, I'm not paying that much money to be treated with that level of contempt in return.

They DRM is irritating. I did have Sky everywhere (living room where the decoder is, bedroom, study, spare room and tablet streamed over my LAN off the analog outputs) until the decoder upgrade broke it. For no good reason, I'm paying $100/m+ and can no longer watch the programming in the bedroom.

Ironically, it is trivially defeatable, and I have the kit to do so, but it requires yet another powerpoint and more cable spaghetti to do so. As well as softening the distributed signal materially. What it doesn't prevent, is recording in HD off the HDMI outputs, which is equally trivial to do. So they have gratuitously degraded the utility of a subscription, without doing *anything* to prevent programming being recorded and archived in high quality.

I hung on to Sky to see the end of Game of Thrones. According to the call I had last night from Spark, the place I live is apparently getting fibre cabled past it in about 3 months. Unless Sky has materially fixed its value proposition by then I'm cancelling the sub I have had since 1996 and moving to a Lightbox/Netflix/Hulu+/iPlayer solution. Which will be much cheaper and, unlike Sky will work around the house and in HD.

If you only have Sky for one TV series, it must be a good one! Isn't it on Neon?

You clearly have no requirement apart from GOT so offload it. If you want to do your own multi room, you cant expect them to cater to that when they have their own multi room. DRM, as the rights owners, not Sky. Ads, they seem to offend so many, FFW. There are ads everywhere in life, at least you can FFW.

End of the day you dont need Sky, looks like Neon would have been a cheaper option

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#1855161 30-Aug-2017 10:28

I think the point here is that Sky has its head up its arse and that is annoying paying customers. It doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent way of doing business. Oh, right, they are bleeding subscribers. Gee, I wonder what the reason for that can be?

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

networkn

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#1855163 30-Aug-2017 10:33

Rikkitic:

I think the point here is that Sky has its head up its arse and that is annoying paying customers. It doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent way of doing business. Oh, right, they are bleeding subscribers. Gee, I wonder what the reason for that can be?

Trolling. You have been watching the rest of the thread you can see the reality is different from the perception and yet you post this disgraceful bit of nonsense.

Are people annoyed? Yes, there are some people. Do they have their heads up their jacksies? Nope, they have a problem that doesn't have an easy or simple solution.

Troll elsewhere.

tdgeek

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#1855166 30-Aug-2017 10:35

Rikkitic:

I think the point here is that Sky has its head up its arse and that is annoying paying customers. It doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent way of doing business. Oh, right, they are bleeding subscribers. Gee, I wonder what the reason for that can be?

I dont see that at all, Sky is trendy to hate. They bled 4% or so? Thats a leak. I have Sky, I get a great picture, MySky works well, its all easy, it just works. If I watch Air Crash and other stuff, yes its not HD. I'd like it to be but its not, Im not wound up about it

They are losing customers (finally) as everyone thinks $15 a month is normal prices now so Sky is rorting. The fact is the Sky has very very little in common with $15 SVOD. They provide MANY TV series or movies, Sky isnt in that market. Sky provides Sport, NF and so on are not in that market. There is very very little overlap. Totally different product. Maybe people need to stop comparing it with a NF model. Its not even close, they are just way different

networkn

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#1855168 30-Aug-2017 10:38

tdgeek:

Rikkitic:

I think the point here is that Sky has its head up its arse and that is annoying paying customers. It doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent way of doing business. Oh, right, they are bleeding subscribers. Gee, I wonder what the reason for that can be?

I dont see that at all, Sky is trendy to hate. They bled 4% or so? Thats a leak. I have Sky, I get a great picture, MySky works well, its all easy, it just works. If I watch Air Crash and other stuff, yes its not HD. I'd like it to be but its not, Im not wound up about it

They are losing customers (finally) as everyone thinks $15 a month is normal prices now so Sky is rorting. The fact is the Sky has very very little in common with $15 SVOD. They provide MANY TV series or movies, Sky isnt in that market. Sky provides Sport, NF and so on are not in that market. There is very very little overlap. Totally different product. Maybe people need to stop comparing it with a NF model. Its not even close, they are just way different

Honestly, you are wasting your breath. Logic has no place for a small percentage of people who just want what they want and if they can't have it, they are getting ripped off or mistreated.

There are people with their heads up their asses but it isn't Sky in this discussion.

This thread ran it's course 3 pages ago.

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#1855169 30-Aug-2017 10:39

Rikkitic:

I think the point here is that Sky has its head up its arse and that is annoying paying customers. It doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent way of doing business. Oh, right, they are bleeding subscribers. Gee, I wonder what the reason for that can be?

Their financials show that the rate of Churn is actually dropping, the peak was in 2000 which was circa 31% it is now circa 15%. Some services have dropped such as satellite and Fatso but online has gone up from 53,570 to 79,936

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#1855170 30-Aug-2017 10:39

Neither of the above posts answer the issues JimmyH was raising. Sky seems to have a number of practices and policies that annoy paying customers but don't serve any real purpose.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#1855171 30-Aug-2017 10:41

Rikkitic:

Neither of the above posts answer the issues JimmyH was raising. Sky seems to have a number of practices and policies that annoy paying customers but don't serve any real purpose.

No, Sky has a set of practices that it's content providers insist it must have. Just because a small group of tech savvy people will actively try and work around it doesn't make it purposeless. Sky has T&C's that specifically forbid circumventing it's copy protections last time I checked, so if found to do this, you could have your subscription cancelled and legal action taken against you.

Rikkitic

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#1855173 30-Aug-2017 10:41

Damn, two more posts snuck in as I was writing my response. I was referring to the ones before those. I was also responding to what JimmyH wrote.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#1855175 30-Aug-2017 10:47

It came down to cost/benefit for me. I was a subscriber in the UK and subscribed through TCL and then directly with Sky in NZ. My kids watched Disney and Nick mainly but it was on as background noise mostly. I found that the "extra" channels in their package were watched less and less and so I was paying Basic + MySky every month ultimately to watch FTA. I convinced the family with a Family Netflix and Family Spotify subscription and have not looked back.

Yes, it boils down to perceived Value For Money - I no longer saw the benefit.

I've said before that the problem with video distribution is the "exclusive" distribution rights part. If all the On Demand providers were able to bid and distribute the content freely it would boil down to who has the best service - it will also prevent market fragmentation. I am not going to subscribe to Amazon, Netflix, Lightbox and Neon just to get the all the content I want to watch.

Imagine if radio stations had exclusive broadcast rights for certain artists or labels - it wouldn't work. It doesn't work in the on demand without borders world that we currently live in. Spotify has not killed the industry (neither did MP3) - it disrupted it and now we have all the music we want for a reasonable subscription. From what I can see, the popular artists are still making ridiculous amounts of money. This is what I would like for video.

Sky can't change this distribution model on its own - but I think the attitude at the top has shown it's not prepared to try to change which is why I also think it may be too late to recover - Sky has already hit the iceberg...

Procrastination eventually pays off.

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#1855177 30-Aug-2017 10:50

What a refreshingly intelligent post.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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#1855181 30-Aug-2017 10:59

@Rikkitic I do not believe that Sky has their heads up their bottoms, if they did they would not be actively seeking alternatives to their current product delivery. What do you think the whole Vodafone merger attempt was about? They know they need to change to delivery per wire but it is not something that can happen over night. There are massive capital considerations, rights, existing contracts, new contracts etc etc etc

tdgeek

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#1855188 30-Aug-2017 11:17

networkn:

tdgeek:

Rikkitic:

I think the point here is that Sky has its head up its arse and that is annoying paying customers. It doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent way of doing business. Oh, right, they are bleeding subscribers. Gee, I wonder what the reason for that can be?

I dont see that at all, Sky is trendy to hate. They bled 4% or so? Thats a leak. I have Sky, I get a great picture, MySky works well, its all easy, it just works. If I watch Air Crash and other stuff, yes its not HD. I'd like it to be but its not, Im not wound up about it

They are losing customers (finally) as everyone thinks $15 a month is normal prices now so Sky is rorting. The fact is the Sky has very very little in common with $15 SVOD. They provide MANY TV series or movies, Sky isnt in that market. Sky provides Sport, NF and so on are not in that market. There is very very little overlap. Totally different product. Maybe people need to stop comparing it with a NF model. Its not even close, they are just way different

Honestly, you are wasting your breath. Logic has no place for a small percentage of people who just want what they want and if they can't have it, they are getting ripped off or mistreated.

There are people with their heads up their asses but it isn't Sky in this discussion.

This thread ran it's course 3 pages ago.

Yep, Im signing off.

Two totally different markets. Sky cant operate a $15 SVOD to keep everyone happy, not unless everyone would like thousand of past sport games to binge on.

They dont operate in the binge TV and Movie market.

They can run satellite, or SVOD, but doing both is duplication, but either would do.

But, yep, moving on

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