Getting rid of Sky Sport 101

Apparently Premier League Pass is on the way out as far as Premier League coverage goes, having lost the rights to BeIN Sports.

And it seems unlikely at this stage that Sky will pick up the Premier League rights for next season from BeIN Sports:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c...

"...it's believed Bein has been trying to on-sell the New Zealand rights to the Premier League.

A Sky Television spokeswoman said that, while negotiations were ongoing, it seemed unlikely the rights would be picked up by the pay television operation.

"We haven't got the rights," she said. "Talks are continuing. Is it likely? No, but neither is the door closed 100 per cent."

A Coliseum statement said: "Our Premier League service will cease entirely from the end of May. We are not sure who has the broadcasting rights for the 2016-17 season. All we can say is that it is not us."

TVNZ, who have carried the free-to-air rights over the past three years, are not in negotiations with Bein Sports."

So, it seems likely at this stage that Sky will continue merely to screen matches from its club channels.

And no more free coverage on TV One.

It seems that BeIN mistakingly paid about 10 million dollars for the NZ EPL rights in some geographical confusion with Australia.

The gist from the NBR paper last week:

"New Zealand EPL rights have gone to an Al Jazeera sports subsidiary called beIN sports, which insiders say paid $10 million for the next three seasons as Campbell Gibson reports in today’s print edition of NBR.

Then ten million dollars, or $3.33 million a year, was just too rich for Spark. Lightbox Sport sells PremierLeaguePass.com season passes for $99, meaning it would need 33,333 subscribers just to cover programming costs. The joint venture has never commented on subscription numbers but there are indications it has fewer than 10,000 (PremierLeaguePass has 4301 followers on Twitter and 6783 on Facebook).

Sky TV could potentially get away with a third of that number of subscribers, given its Fanpass.co.nz already charges $299 a year (each) for Super Rugby, NRL and Formula One – but there was obviously a question over price elasticity.

But wait, it's not over yet.

Overnight, a person close to the deal revealed beIN’s real interest was in Australian rights but that, in the convoluted process of pursuing them, it paid an inflated price for the New Zealand rights. The Al Jazeera unit is said to now realise its blunder, and the insider predicts it might on-sell New Zealand rights to Lightbox Sport or Sky for a price below $10 million to recoup some of what its spent. And Lightbox Sport has confirmed that beIN is shopping around local rights. If there are no takers, beIN could launch its own streaming service in New Zealand."

Check out TVNZ's new men's channel "Duke" for live Bundesliga matches every Saturday morning (the Friday night game in Germany).

One hour Bundesliga Highlights Show every Monday 6 pm.

Half hour football magazine show "Club Land" every Thursday 6.30 pm with stories on two major clubs from around the world (history and current form) and major players. This week was Boca Juniors and Monaco. Worth watching.

Duke screens on ch.13 on Freeview and ch. 23 on Sky

They also have a few live AFL matches every week plus live (and delayed) NBA on Wednesdays and will have NFL games from the States next NFL season.

Bring on the baseball.

NBA Finals coming soon as part of your Sky Sports at no extra cost.

How many in NZ watch that as against to the EPL when it was on Sky?

Sky to Air Euro 2016

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/football-soccer/news/art...

Discussion in the media about people departing Sky seems to be ramping up.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/78918691/customers...

The industry expert in the article specifically says that Sky should now be offering their channels at an individual price, so you can pick and choose what you actually want, rather than paying a huge fee for content you will only watch 0.01% of. He says they should already have moved to that model. 

The Sky spokesperson's view on that?

"We think there is a place for traditional Sky for many years yet. It offers a lot of premium content for a relatively low monthly cost. I say this with my hand on heart as I went to the movies with my two kids on Saturday, it cost $46 dollars for the tickets only, let alone parking and popcorn, all for two hours' pleasure for three people. Sky is very good value."

Not sure how Sky can be so out of touch with the market to be honest. Comparing with the cinema is apples and oranges - people don't go to the movies instead of watching tv at home. Ridiculous comparison. 

They are going to collapse spectacularly in the next few years if they really believe the crap she's saying. My missus got a whiff of Netflix for the first time recently - a mate had a spare device allocation so put it on our tablet for her to try out. She's sold, ready to get rid of Sky within a week. Now me panicking about my sports is the only thing holding us up! Seriously considering going full rogue on illegal streaming now...

Bye bye Sky. They can't say they weren't warned!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/7968966...

Sky spokesperson on Apr 15;

"We think there is a place for traditional Sky for many years yet. It offers a lot of premium content for a relatively low monthly cost. I say this with my hand on heart as I went to the movies with my two kids on Saturday, it cost $46 dollars for the tickets only, let alone parking and popcorn, all for two hours' pleasure for three people. Sky is very good value."

Sky CEO yesterday;

"We do not expect the ... rate of subscriber loss to continue in [the year to June 2017] given ... the expected positive impact on subscriber numbers from upcoming major sport events, including the Rio Summer Olympics in August 2016 and the Lion's Tour in June 2017,"

These guys are probably just lying through their teeth to convince people to stay, but on the other hand, if they really believe that crap, then it just shows how completely out of touch with the market they are.  

Sounds accurate to me.

sounds like your letting your hatred sour your opinion.  Sure there are people who the SKY model doesn't work for, but alternatively there are people that it does work for - and enough of them to warrant the business model.

Yes like the 850,000 subscribers...

I bought MLB.tv premium this year - best thing ever, game pretty much every day...

Some games free-to-air on Prime too.

This offer is still available:

Subscribe to Sky through their marketing company Icon where you can get a very good special offer of Sky Basic plus Sky Sport for only $39 / month plus a free My Sky box for recording stuff.

Minimum contract of only six months after which you are free to quit (but you can opt to keep the special offer for up to one year)

This offer is not available by contacting Sky TV but only their marketing company Icon at this number:

0800 475 988

I rang and had Sky installed within three days.

I'm very happy paying only $39 per month for all the basic Sky channels plus the sport channels.

After installation, you then deal exclusively with Sky TV, not the marketing company (say if you want to add any other channels etc. or have any problems).

If you take up this offer now, you will also get the coming European club finals, the FA Cup final, the four EPL club channels on Sky plus next season's A-League, All Whites matches etc. too

You can do what I do and quit Sky after your special offer finishes (I'm keeping it for a year): give Sky the required one month's notice of disconnection - and then wait two months without Sky so you're then eligible for any special promotions again. Phone Icon Marketing again and get the same offer!

Fair call, definitely an ounce of that in terms of my opinion. It's not a hatred though, just frustration that I'm a current subscriber and they aren't giving me what I want. I'm more than ready to jump but waiting to see what happens with EPL, and for fibre to come available to me (any day I'm told). 

Yes their business model does work for some - much the same as NZ Post's physical mail network still works for people who want to send letters. 

Younger generations will not sign up for Sky like the generations did before them, and they have no moral qualms with accessing content illegally if that's what they have to do to avoid a large bill for swathes of content they don't want. 

There are no demographics for Sky that will feasibly grow that I can see, unless they are able to transform to an online platform effectively. Unfortunately they're showing little evidence of being capable of that, and their comments suggest they have no desire for it. 

let me put it this way - you run a business that is turning over money and your board are happy - a subset of your market is starting to want a different service - one that will eat into the profitability of your current business model.  You can see that this subset of the market will only get bigger but at the moment you are wary of eating into your successful business model.

You make a hard call to retain the current business model albeit with a smaller chance of growth while you work on developing some alternative business models that won't cannibalise your traditional service - ones that you can convert the bulk of your market to once the time comes.

There will be a "day of reckoning" when you have to switch to your new business model that you have been working on when the market numbers are right - until then you watch the market carefully and try not to overreact to those at the front of the subset who are calling for change.

Exactly, SKY could simply reduce its prices 25% tomorrow, cut its dividend and continue on.  It would lose market cap because it would go from a high dividend paying stock, but this is still a cash cow

Agree completely. 

Problem being that the "subset" has been growing for some time now, and they are not "starting" to want a different service - they started to want it a long time ago. We're past early-adopter stage, we are now into mainstream individuals and families rapidly leaving their service. 

Personally I think the horse has bolted - I don't think having 300 mil wiped off their shares in one morning was part of the transition plan!

Sky cannot just switch them to another platform and retain these subscribers - they don't have any power here. They cannot just buy all the content like they used to. They are either being priced out of the market (e.g. football), or a lot of the premium content cannot be bought at all any longer (Netflix-produced content etc). 

The simple fact is that they aren't going to be able to provide a large percentage of premium content like they traditionally have. Combine that with their apparent inability to get an effective online service up and running, and it doesn't look good for them. 

Rugby and Cricket are their two key assets right now, will be interesting to see how they use them. 

and there is the difference - they don't think the horse has bolted, there is certainly more pressure and no-one will disagree the subset is growing - it's just when to change for overall minimal disruption.


Football is right at the front of this issue so it's subset is much larger than those for other content - also when you saying we were priced out of the market for Football and Golf there are mitigating circumstances around that content.  If your interested I can tell you what I understand happened with those two bids.


Interesting to see that NRL was just resigned by SKY for a long term - that was a at risk piece of content last time it was up for bidding and we almost didn't get it across the line so good to see it all sorted out early this time.

Winning content very late in the piece seems to be a pattern for Sky now, which isn't a good sign in itself. 

They/you obviously don't think the horse has bolted, but personally I think your heads are in the sand.

Yes of course there were mitigating circumstances around the football and golf - so what? How does that exempt them from the discussion? It's pretty black and white... there will always be mitigating circumstances now because the landscape has changed big time. And most of those circumstances can't be resolved by throwing more money at it, or by having a monopoly on outdated television services. 

Sports overseas are starting to offer their content direct to the consumer, whilst selling limited rights packages to tv channels (often FTA ones). That is the most profitable way for wealthy and popular sports like football, the nfl etc. 

Sports that are only big in this part of the world will take longer to make that switch (if at all), because they don't have the global audience it requires. So I could feasibly see Sky surviving as a provider of more localised sporting content (Rugby, Cricket, NRL), but that would require a huge reduction in the size of the company and numbers of subscribers. I doubt they'll be willing to basically down-size when they apparently think they can keep the whole cake for themselves, so they will likely shoot themselves in the foot trying to do that. 

Outside of these smaller sports, I don't see how Sky has any power at all in this industry any longer. 

Paulm - you are forgetting something very important.  The value of sporting rights is very different to different people.  The NBA might be able to offer an online package of rights which people can sign up to directly.  The value to them of doing that is very different than to a media company (like Sky) which can bid for and create a business based off buying and selling rights.  The NBA runs a basketball league, that's a very different skill from maximising the value of its rights worldwide.  Therefore there will always be a place for media companies to acquire rights and on-sell them to the public.  The idea that ultimately every sport will be provided by a direct to consumer model is plainly wrong.  The idea that all individual sports will also be packaged separately is ok in theory, but hugely inefficient and therefore expensive because you are replicating the infrastructure.  For sky to add new sports and new channels is simple, so there will always be some sort of aggregated content providers. 

We are at the beginning of a movement away from delivery of rights via a set top box, sky as a business has some challenges and they need to get better at digital without cannibalising their existing subscriber base - that's a tricky feat for them and one the market is clearly concerned about.  But I do not see that any time soon traditional satellite TV companies being seriously challenged - I doubt you can provide evidence of that occurring anywhere in the world because it has not happened.  Satellite TV companies in larger markets with better broadband and more sophisticated customer bases are still thriving. 

I am not a sky apologist and as a company it does online and digital badly which is a real weakness.  But the idea that sky is dead is fanciful.  We had this exact discussion 2 years ago when Coliseum acquired the premier league rights and where are they now?

Excellent points, particularly regarding the sporting rights market. Ties in with my suggestion that perhaps sport only is where the future lies for Sky - because the TV series and Movies area is one where they are indeed dying, and fast. That is the key driver for people leaving Sky. My missus got one look at Netflix and said that for her and the kids, all they need is Netflix and the free on-demand channels, and they are sorted. So as it stands I am the one in our household keeping Sky on deck! And that's just because I'm not confident enough in our internet connection to handle live streaming. That confidence will soon be on board when we have fiber. 

Yes this discussion was had 2 years ago, but nobody was seriously suggesting that PLP was going to be the end of Sky. I saw PLP as the first wave of attack in terms of sports. Everyone assumed that when the rights came up again, Sky wouldn't be so silly as to "low ball" them again. But hey, here we are, and Sky have lost the rights again, to someone else this time. They also lost Golf for a period, and when they do win stuff, it seems to be at the last minute - I'm assuming that means competition is more of a factor now than it's ever been?

Many people 2 years ago said Sky needed to transition, and fast, but they haven't. Yes it is a tricky thing for them to manage, of course, but I feel they have done poorly so far, and it will be difficult for them to recover. Certainly in terms of non-sporting content they are in serious trouble.

I have no sky and Netflix, so similar to your end game - Netflix is a great product although it is interesting, 6 months in and the content feels a bit thin now I have watched some older stuff.  I use my dad's skygo login to watch sport and had a PLP account (until it stop working for no reason with 3 weeks to go, Coliseum were shark weren't they?) but generally watch a lot less sport than I used to.  I miss being able to flick around channels, there is a bit more hassle moving between various systems.  Basically this arrangement is cheaper for me but it does not really replace sky, if I wasn't saving money at the moment I would get sky even though it is not cheap.

LOt so f market chat about sky merging with a tech company (Vodafone has been mentioned).  I think that is a distinct possibility if the share price keeps dropping

That is really pisspoor that Coliseum have basically abandoned their service. I have a subscription and tried to watch the ManU/Norwich game, but it just wouldn't bloody play. I got a bit nervous heading into a major Arsenal game last night but thankfully it worked ok. 

I have hated not being able to trust the service since it started, but I have enjoyed having all games available to me at any time, which was always my bugbear with Sky. 

Interesting comment about a potential merger. Would make sense - the telco's etc are certainly wading into the tv market now.

Even if they were to do that successfully, get their online offerings in a much better space, and unbundle their packages to a degree, Sky would still never be able to get back to their old position in the market I don't think. 

It used to be a bit of a no-brainer here for years - either get Sky, or put up with very limited options. Now the other options are opening up, even if sport is still a ways behind. 

the channel flicking sports fan is exactly what sky should be targeting. I doubt they'll grab the EPL rights from BeIN (unless they can get it dirt cheap) because the club channels they currently have are actually perfect for the kind of subscriber they have. 

I really think there are two markets there. One of the casual sports fan who wants to casually flick through sport for a reasonable price (think ESPN) and those who want to watch specific games, and a lot of them, without wanting to pay for other sports they have little interest in (these are mostly "cord cutters")

I think sky were in a very strong position, if they were fast enough to act on this trend, to get a dominant market share in both of these markets. But instead they've fought it all the way and were very slow to react. Now they've got the public offside and also opened themselves up to competition. They could have leveraged their monopoly position in the pay tv market to gain a strong position in the online streaming market, but didn't (and by all accounts still refuse to). 

Even moving away from sports you can see how doing this worked out for them. Sky had great HBO content and what did they do with it? Force you to buy sky basic and then have to pay a further $10/month to access the content. Netflix were always going to be a major player due to their global dominance, but this delay allowed lightbox to get the jump on them and emerge as one of the dominant players in this area, along with Netflix while NEON lags way behind due to limited content and just generally being a very awful service compared to the other two (and being more expensive). 

Netflix major selling point is it's exclusive titles and the large amount of content in its library. Sky had the rights to a lot of really good premium content, but decided to hide it behind its traditional model. This allowed lightbox to come in and compete on quality content (instead of quantity of content like Netflix do) - this is what NEON should have been competing on. If sky had been quicker react I really doubt lightbox would have been able to do this. Even now they've given no indication that they intend to improve their poor neon service to even try to compete with these two, the content is even in SD still! Although they have finally decided to release some content to NEON as soon as it is available, whereas previously the likes of GoT was only available on their TV service and would be released to neon much later. So that's a start. 

We? Do you work for sky by chance?

These sorts of things, as well as the comments coming from Fellett and other Sky spokespeople are what have got me so up in arms. They are either lying through their teeth, or they are seriously out of touch with the market. 

I don't care if Sky survive, that's not why I'm frustrated, it's because they still own a lot of content I want, so I have to conform to their archaic model if I want to see it. 

Fanpass is far too expensive, and is it really only live tv i.e. you can't watch a game delayed??? And I heard it doesn't show the sports pop-up channels? Really?

yes that's been well covered before - I'm not trying to hide it, but I don't work in any area related to this discussion - IE a low level lacky.


and I am enjoying this discussion because there are obviously several points of view and they are being discussed without getting personal - I am also by no means a spokesperson for the company - but I take an interest in their future.

I used to work in music retail and it's amazing how much this mirrors many of the issues that went on there a few years ago. Record labels and large chain stores were perfectly positioned to leverage off their existing brands and networks to deliver quality online streaming or download options like Spotify or iTunes have done, but instead tried desperately to cling to an outdated business model and ultimately lost a lot of potential money and market share because they couldn't adapt to changing consumer demands quickly enough.

What is concerning about it though is that the A League is funded by this very model (tv rights pay the salary cap) and bundled tv packages probably pay over market value for it because the collective sports bundle is worth more than individual sports on a pay as you go basis. Pubs which constantly have pay tv sports channels going and families who subscribe to cable or satellite tv sports channels for rugby or basketball or whatever effectively subsidise the cost of the rights for the people who subscribe and do want to watch. I highly doubt that the FFA could make as much money only selling subscriptions to an A League streaming service as they could selling the rights to Foxtel and Sky. That's a bit worrying in the long term (but not enough to make me get Sky again!)

Interesting article on that subject from an American perspective here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/06/t...

Sky will have a lot of strength as long as they hold the major sports in NZ.

I was a happy subscriber until they didn't pay shark for the A League knowing it would hurt my team as I always assumed they overpaid for all sports so when I fell in love with football I fell out of love with Sky with their sharke coverage of NZ football.  And a large number of their subscribers do so just for sports and consider the basic package + sports a good price for just sports.

If someone came in with big wads of cash and outbid them in some key areas then that would hurt them something fierce very suddenly.  But I don't see that happening, at least not in the next decade or so while there are still people who CBF with internet based TV when for 80 bucks a month they get the content they want, and dont care how many people are talking about shows on the internet a few episodes ahead.

A lot of people like to talk like sky is f**ked but they always have highs and lows in subscribers and ill be surprised if they lose too many viewers in the near future.

But you never know, 15 years ago if someone told me Yahoo was going to be borderline non-existent in the future Id have said you were insane, sky could be in any state in 15 years.

To clarify, Sky don't get those programmes at all, it's not a case of being a few episodes behind or something. 

Internet tv providers are now producing their own content, that will never be shown on any other platform. 

We're talking big tv series, and big movies. 

Sorry there is that too, though Sky had a few of those for a while like house of cards.  But for a lot of people missing out on a show or two is easier than navigating multiple sources to get all of the shows you want.

Im very tempted to take advantage of the offer higher up in this thread, but I also want to stick to my guns and support competition in the market.  So I'm torn.

that's not quite accurate - well it depends on what content exactly you are talking about.  But SKY have an exclusive deal with HBO and that gets some pretty good shows on Soho (also on Neon).

I just wanted to address something else - I am under no illusions that Neon and Fanpass (let's not even start on SKY Go) have issues and that's an area we need to be better in if we are going to transition at some point with any margin of success - IMO.

I think sky missed a big opportunity with neon that allowed lightbox into the tv/movie streaming market with a big share. 

They're in danger of going down that path again with sports, but can still turn it around at this point. Can see your point regarding positioning themselves then biding their time to make the switch, it's just as paulm pointed out the comments from sky management haven't really indicated that, or been very encouraging. Also the bad Reputation services like skygo, fanpass and neon are building through sky providing them in a "half assed" manner won't exactly help if/when they do decide to make the move. 

There have been figures provided about a drop in total subscribers, it'd be interesting to know how many dropping are movies, sport or both. Also how much of the latest figure is seasonal, I imagine there is a big uptake in lead up to things like the rugby World Cup, then people drop it afterward (not a great model to rely on a tournament which occurs every 4 years, but the flip side is you can basically ignore those customers as not being part of their core subscriber base, as the rise and cancellations negate each other). 

Getting quite a bit of news time in the MSM now

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/7981791...

How much did thaf cost? 

$110/year (that is USD I think though). There is also a free game every day. 

Sky should. They will  ontinue to make their money, possibly even increase it more quickly as more people come back. 

In summary, currently too expensive for all the options, crap customer service, too much time on the various channels doing self promotion and commercials, no dedicated football channel when there is clearly football going on around the world 24/7.

Prices going up

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8009290...

"The broadcaster has found itself caught between a rock and a hard place as more customers switch off its satellite television service for internet-based rivals, which are also bidding up the cost of content."

"The forecast drop in Sky satellite subscribers means Sky will have fewer customers over which to spread those rising content costs."

The bits that got me...

1) Rise in content costs = $30m

2) Rise in Price (Sports + Basic) = $27.60 per year

I can't find the Sports Sub numbers, but they seem to be passing on the vast majority of that inceased cost straight to the customer, and then you look at their dividend's being paid to shareholders which have continued to be ~25c per share even though they continue to have higher costs and lower customer numbers...

Demand Drops - Price Rises? They know that previous price rises are what made last lot of people leave right?

"we have less subscribers now so we have to bleed what remaining subscribers we have left for all the cash that we can"