dafman:
Just an observation. The basic tenor of Sky discussions threads has shifted in recent months from 'what Sky needs to do to stay in business' to 'what will inevitably replace Sky'
Ive not seen that. Its usually been the usual banter. What has changed now, more so that a similar and brief thread 6 months ago, is that the share price is much lower. AND Fellett "retired". AND new CEO overseas looking for investors. AND its normal for them to lose say 30 or 40k subscribers, thats a lot but a low % BUT the profit they will earn this year of 100M is 100k subscribers revenue, 100,000 subscribers x annual ARPU of $1000 (12 x $80 ARPU) So losing the usual numbers is now a BIG part of what profit they still have
So, its now getting dire. They cannot just cut expenses. They cannot just increase subscribers as these are already in decline at the rate of a few tens of thousands per year. If they dropped prices by $10 thats $100 loss per each 10 subscribers x 750,000 of them. They would need 2 new subscribers out of each 10 they already have to make ground, AS WELL as stopping churn immediately. A $10 decrease in price won't do that, its too small, but hey they already have with HD. Although not everyone has HD and they have increased prices by a few dollars. They could drop content, but they have already paid for it, and even then, dropping content reduces value so more leave
From here on I cannot see them innovating or improving to stop this, a wholesale change is needed. two things need to happen. Reduce pricing a decent amount, the amount that will cause people to re join. Sky NZ I don't feel can do that in this country.
Actually, another option is they don't get replaced, as the only people affected are sports viewers, so we buy non geo blocked apps, as there are no rights here so we can do that.