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The danger for Sky’s non-sport content is that all the big US producers are launching their own global direct to consumer streaming services. This will have a big impact on the quality and quantity of series and movies available to sky in the future. For instance most of the most popular shows on sky & lightbox are from HBO & Hulu, two US producers which are launching global streaming services in the near future (HBO is owned by AT&T/TimeWarner, Hulu is owned by Disney). Likewise the majority of large hollywood movies are not going to be available to sky: Disney already keeps the rights for all Disney films (including Marvel/Pixar/StarWars etc), and now they also own all of the Fox film & TV assets which will also remain exclusive to Disney’s own services. At&t/timewarner likewise will in future keep all film content from its warner brothers studio Exclusive to its own global streaming service after it launches next year. Obviously The billions that Netflix & Apple are spending on their own tv & film content will also not be available to sky either.
anyone who subscribed to sky movies will have already noticed the dramatic decrease in quality of films available. I remember when every Sunday night would be a big premiere movie, but now it’s probably one movie a month I want to see, 2 if I’m lucky, and some of the Sunday night Premieres I have literally never heard of before.
NEON looks pretty good TBH. Have started a new trial. The actual app/site itself looks a heck of a lot more polished. Not that NEON is going to save Sky.
What's next, James Cameron streaming Avatar direct. Why would he need Disney or Netflix? He could just distribute the movie directly from Avatar.com. When does this end?
Lot of people predicted the end of cinema but doesn't look like that's happening.
The point is that some type of platform/infrastructure is needed.
Just like with online shopping, you need a warehouse somewhere. Servers also have to be somewhere too. There is always something physical.
HBO is launching its own service, sky wont have access to their future output.
rugby is sky’s primary asset now. From a pure survival standpoint, if NZ rugby decided to go direct to consumer, or if another deep pocketed company outbid sky for the next broadcast deal, it would be the end of SKY TV.
If you look at the Porn industry, which is basically the leader when it comes to content distribution (think VHS vs betamax / DVD vs Bluray etc), you'll see a mixture of direct and third party distribution (as well a lot of piracy obliviously).
You have platforms, like Pornhub, large content producers like Brazzars and third party distributors like ClipForSale etc. As well as lot of small content producers going direct.
The point is that the market is never dominated by one distribution stream. The market is made up of a mixture of different providers. They all have strength and weakness and different revenue models. The market is complex and one system never works.
Sky is strong in sports, both in content but also in supplementary content like clip shows, sport news, and other infrastructure, OSB etc. Their brand is strong in NZ and they have a large following. Also, like I've said before in this thread, their satellite base is a huge asset, that's not going away anytime soon.
Their relationship with HBO is positive and it's unlikely they will cut the ties fully. Stan over in Australia secured the rights of HBO recently. Similarity, when/if Discovery buys Mediaworks, it's unlikely they will pull their content from Sky. Maybe more content will be pulled, such as Disney, but I think ultimately it will never all be pulled entirely. Just like with the Porn industry, it will never be the case that everyone ends up on Pornhub.
Going forward, you will likely see more mergers. And if not, more regulation stopping complete dominance of one player, ie see "United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948)". If Disney ends up owner everything it will likely be broken up.
At the end of the day, Sky today is valued at only ~$250m. I think it's priced right and worth an investment at these levels and it's extremely unlikely it's going to be obsolete anytime soon, in fact, the opposite is more likely, with more growth and earnings going forward.