SKT Sky Network Television Limited.

[mistaTea]

Looks like Sky have done a lot of work in the My Account section of their website. Has had a fairly significant refresh.

And it looks like from June 13 my package will become $10/month cheaper as they will stop charging me for the wifi booster I had to get a few months back.

No doubt part of the work they are doing to try and refresh their pricing/packages - and needed in the context of Sky Sport subscriptions needing to go up in price (albeit a modest price increase there only).

[mikelee]

I wonder who is going to lose the most customer in the end? Business like Netflix or SKY.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61139483

The rising cost of living in Britain has led to households cancelling their streaming subscriptions, new research suggests.

[Balance]

I wonder who is going to lose the most customer in the end? Business like Netflix or SKY.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61139483

The rising cost of living in Britain has led to households cancelling their streaming subscriptions, new research suggests.

Comes down to who has the sports.

[Marilyn Munroe]

I wonder who is going to lose the most customer in the end? Business like Netflix or SKY.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61139483

The rising cost of living in Britain has led to households cancelling their streaming subscriptions, new research suggests.

Headline: Netflix shares crater 24% after company reports it lost subscribers for the first time in more than 10 years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/19/netf...s-q1-2022.html

Boop boop de do
Marilyn

[bull....]

it appears streaming thieves are to blame , they probably do the same to neon

[mistaTea]

it appears streaming thieves are to blame , they probably do the same to neon

They absolutely do.

NETFLIX reckon they are going to release some tech that will catch offenders and make them pay an extra fee. I am very sceptical that it will work.

We don't have this issue with SSN where you can only have a single stream at a time.

Even for our STB customers, a number of them will share their Sky GO credentials with friends and families.

At the moment it is not a major issue for Sky TV because we are still seeing enormous growth in NEON and SSN while stabilising the STB base. But there will come a time in the not too distant future where the growth we see slows dramatically (and even potentially reverses) and Sky will also have to clamp down.

Also of interest: https://fortune.com/2022/04/19/infla...lations-spike/

Disney+ seems to be the first service for many to get sh1tcanned. I currently have the service for 'free' with my Sky Broadband, and it is not a bad service...but I would not renew it unless Sky are able to continue giving it to me for 'free' or it is offered at a steep discount to the RRP as part of a Sky bundle.

[mistaTea]

Looks like I missed this one a week or so ago.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/comp...08-p5ac0t.html

Foxtel IPO 'on hold' indefnitely - for the umpteenth time!

And they are in an expensive bidding war at the moment for AFL.

One of the reasons for the lack of appetite from fund managers is the experience that SNT is going through - low SP despite strong Balance Sheet and growth.

These guys need scale, which is why I think that one of the various possibilities is Foxtel and Sky joining up. They could even further consolidate over time by picking up TV stations in the pacific islands. You start by being a larger trans-Tasman entity but ultimately become the media play of the South Pacific.

It would definitely help gain scale and clout with future negotiations for entertainment and sport.

[mistaTea]

it appears streaming thieves are to blame , they probably do the same to neon

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/...UBV3TLYTLT4XQ/

I think their plan to roll out a program whereby people can freely share their account with another household for a heavily discounted price if bonkers.

At first blush you think, well ok...if there really are 100M households around the world getting NETFLIX for free, then even if you can get them to pay $3/month that would be an extra $3.6B revenue a year - a 12% increase to revenue! Very good! Right?

Well, I am not so sure. Because once they legitimise password sharing I believe human nature is such that they will see a large number of existing paying subs cancel so that they can share the account of a friend or family member for a discounted price. Especially in this inflationary environment where people are keen to find ways to save money.

I can't begin to speculate on how much of a negative this could be for NETFLIX, but I would expect to see a substantial revenue decline if they go through with this.

They do need to crack down on password sharing - and they have the technology to figure out who is leeching. But I think that they should disrupt the service for those not paying to encourage them to get their own service, rather than reward them for doing the wrong thing.

Sky will face the same dillema once our growth in streaming subs slow down.

[snigmac]

I think alot of the Netflix problem is that families across different countries can use the same account (and it would be fine as they log in at different times - with time zone differences Netflix can't really stop this well). I think account sharing issues applies to Sky to a much lesser extent as it's local to NZ. For Neon access is limited via opened portals at a single time and if different people want to watch at the same time, they need a new account or something (I haven't explored this yet).

[mistaTea]

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opi...-learn-from-it

I am not sure I go along with the doom prophets that NETFLIX is now doomed to fail, however the service has become quite expensive for what you get and their current moves (to combat their problems) are sure to cause even more people to cancel I think.

It will be interesting to see the latest streaming subscription figures for Sky when the FY results are released.

Being a shareholder of Sky I have bias, but I think you can easily make the case that NEON (which you can get for as little as $13.33/month if you take an Annual Pass) is better value than NETFLIX. The equivalent HD plan for NETFLIX is $18.49.

Now I don't personally think a difference of $5.16/month (17 cents per day...) is going to break the bank for most people. But it is fair to say that NEON is 28% cheaper than NETFLIX yet offers a much better range of premium content - which shouldn't be a suprise given Sky have locked up deals with most of the major production studios (i.e. NETFLIX's competitors).

Regretably, the big one that we don't have a deal with is NETFLIX. I believe Spark still have an exclusive deal with them - I am not sure how much longer that deal runs for nor whether Spark will be prepared to pay the big $$$ again to keep it exclusive. One one hand I hope they don't because I think it would be awesome for Sky to get in on the act...on the other hand I hope they do because the existence of exclusive NETFLIX deals and Spark Sport make it much easier for Sky to exploit attractive M&A opportunities in the future (in terms of being able to get past the regulator).

Anyway, as NETFLIX seek to secure additional revenue streams, I do wonder if they will loosen things up and do deals with traditional cable tv/content aggregation companies like their competitors do?

So they could do a co-exclusive deal with Sky which enables them to continue offering NETFLIX as a standalone produce, but also allows Sky to provide a 'NETFLIX channel' for linear viewing as well as all of their original content available On Demand.

If they start to see a sustained reduction in streaming subscriptions I think they will have to explore this option as a way of regaining lost customers. Just a thought anyway.