Feedback for Martin Stewart, Sky CEO

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dafman

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#261993 28-Dec-2019 12:24

I am not a Sky subscriber. I was in the distant past, but left as I didn't see enough value for the cost. I've also been critical in recent years of Sky's business model and service.

This holiday break I have been staying at a house with Sky and last night we sat down to watch a classic movie on the Jones channel. After about an hour we gave up and swapped into Netflix - the reason being that we got sick of sitting through the long intrusive ad breaks.

I understand that income from adverts is an important revenue stream for Sky, but what I couldn't understand is why at least half, if not more, of each ad break was Sky self promotion. And one self promo led into another, then another, then another ... eg, promo for Louis Therouz pop up channel, followed by Sky sport, followed by Box office, followed by... etc.

Without the incessant self promotion, sitting through breaks for just the revenue producing ads would have been bearable. I appreciate as a new CEO you are making substantive efforts to improve the Sky product. In an age of advertisement free streaming services, reducing the frequency and length of Sky self promotion interjecting programming would be a welcome change.

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#2382125 28-Dec-2019 12:29

Agree I get Sky thru Vodafone TV but the number of ads is putting me right off

shrub

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#2382133 28-Dec-2019 12:43

Hold on so your paying for a service and the shows/movies are forcing viewers to sit though ad breaks? wow...

Sorry I haven't had or watched sky in over 15 years(UHF) this seems like an insane move. No wonder viewers leaving in droves.

Linux

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#2382135 28-Dec-2019 12:47

@shrub yes lots of ads every 10 to 15 minutes advertising Sky

chevrolux

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#2382137 28-Dec-2019 12:49

shrub:

Hold on so your paying for a service and the shows/movies are forcing viewers to sit though ad breaks? wow...

Sorry I haven't had or watched sky in over 15 years(UHF) this seems like an insane move. No wonder viewers leaving in droves.

Amazon Prime does the same. A pre-roll ad about some garbage "amazon original" before your show is played.

This is why torrents and Plex still win in our house.

quickymart

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#2382138 28-Dec-2019 12:50

Ads between movies/shows I can imagine would be acceptable for most people, but during a show? Aren't people paying for the service already?

I remember reading somewhere that advertising revenue made up a very small portion of their income/profit - self promotional stuff would be almost nothing - so why persist with ads during a show?

vexxxboy

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#2382161 28-Dec-2019 13:35

ithe only thing i watch live on Sky is sport, no adds, everything else i record and watch later which means i dont notice the adds, after a few weeks i tend to have 30 to 40 hours of content to watch and can avoid the adds.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

robjg63

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#2382171 28-Dec-2019 14:16

We were staying with family a couple of days ago and that self-promotion content just about drove me crazy as well.

Remember seeing sky somewhere else a couple of years back and marvelled at that constant self promo junk at the time. It hasn't got better.

Its almost as if they sat round and thought - 'How could we really wind up the viewers - I know - lets bombard them with constant junk so they will feel like they are watching free to air TV'.

Incredible - Its like they just dont want viewers.

I wondered if they just use it as padding to fill out their program slots.

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Rikkitic

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#2382215 28-Dec-2019 14:35

Interesting that this hasn't changed under the new leadership. The promos were also one of my biggest gripes when we used to have Sky pre-streaming. I could never understand why they insisted on doing this. The only thing I can think of is if they are relaying feeds from other sources with lots of ads like the USA, and they stick in the promos to make up the time. It is still a dumb thing to do.

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l43a2

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#2382230 28-Dec-2019 15:37

for channels like jones etc they could reduce or remove the ads, but for a lot of others like discovery,nat geo etc those of which come from foxtel in AU it might be harder to reduce promotional and product adverts as the AU feeds will go to break and sky has to put something in that spot.

Apsattv

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#2382254 28-Dec-2019 17:04

If you are watching via vodafone tv , rewind or go fwd in the guide, if the show has been on sky and is playing again. You should be able to use the 20 seconds skip button to jump through much of the adverts.

k1w1k1d

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#2382257 28-Dec-2019 17:49

We are presently staying in a house with Sky and agree with the previous comments. Too much self advertising!

Darts and cricket are about the only things worth watching. Can't find too many decent movies to watch.

ajobbins

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#2382263 28-Dec-2019 18:08

Apsattv:

If you are watching via vodafone tv , rewind or go fwd in the guide, if the show has been on sky and is playing again. You should be able to use the 20 seconds skip button to jump through much of the adverts.

What a PITA and why should people have to bother with this. Even if they can ultimately skip through them, it degrades the viewing experience.

I haven't had Sky for more than 10 years (tho I did leave NZ 8 years ago) and had Foxtel briefly in Oz, which was the same. Could not believe the number of ads I was being subjected to for a $100+ a month service, and the bitrate was awful and half the channels were still in SD. When you're used to the likes of Netflix, the old way becomes pretty much unwatchable.

No or minimal ads/interruptions should be part of the value prop of what Sky is selling. Seems like the new board/management are just as out of touch as the last group.

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boosacnoodle

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#2382323 28-Dec-2019 22:59

Fairly simple explanation for this I would think. You are either:

Watching the show (which costs money to provide)
Watching an advertisement (which generates them money)
Watching a Sky self-promotion (which costs them nothing to run and reduces the amount of shows they have to show you)

Anytime you are watching the show its costing them money (licensing, etc.). Then if they cannot fill that slot with a paid ad, putting a Sky self-promotion in its place means that they don't have to provide you with as much content as they otherwise would have to meaning less cost for them (more Sky promotions = less watchable show time = less content = less cost to Sky).

Not a customer centric experience at all and probably just one of the many reasons why their subscriber ship is declining YOY.

premiumtouring

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#2382325 28-Dec-2019 23:05

I'm sorry but the days of paying for an entertainment provider to serve me content on their schedule are over.

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nathan

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#2382338 29-Dec-2019 07:40

I remember when Sky originally first launched in NZ, with no ads,

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