SKT Sky Network Television Limited.

[blackcap]

Just had a quick squiz at the results.

1. I think the big 'good news' story for Sky is that they increased Sky Sport NOW subs by 56K compared to the same time last year. Very good, and over time they could easily double those subs.
2. However, the steady 2-3% churn of Sky Box customers continues despite the new Sky Box being released. Of the 16K STB customers lost since a year ago, 14K of them were cord cutting in the last 6 months (the big increase in Sky Sport was probably the catalyst). With an ARPU of $83/month that is ~$16M gone. Need to keep an eye on these subs to see if the cord cutting escalates. A lot will opt for SSN which is great, but ARPU is half STB so revenue still takes a hit.
3. With NEON, I had heard anecdotally about a lot of people cancelling their sub in favour of competitor services. Losing 41K subs compared to the same time last year is a bit of a worry. The price to value for this Entertainment service should be a no-brainer for kiwis. However, clearly consumers are seeing better value elsewhere (and that is despite NEON having HBO etc).
4. Good to see some small increases in GAAP earnings, and slight lift in divvy. But also worth nothing that after all was said and done, the cash balance still decreased by $8.6M. All good and well to continue with buybacks if they think the SP is low, and to pay out dividends... but that will not be able to go on forever at the rate they are paying out unless they can find a way to increase FCF.

I will migrate to SKY sport NOW, but it will be targeted and only for certain events. Nothing to excite me till May when the French Open starts for example. And then July for the Tour De France.

Their losing a lot of sports to competitors must be a worry. When you cant do the cricket in NZ thats a huge loss.

[Leemsip]

Despite all the anecdotes on here, customer base is pretty sticky and SKT gouging them nicely.

[blackcap]

Despite all the anecdotes on here, customer base is pretty sticky and SKT gouging them nicely.

Don't disagree, it took me a long time to go and its the inertia that gets you. I can imagine many just happily paying the monthly.

[mistaTea]

I will migrate to SKY sport NOW, but it will be targeted and only for certain events. Nothing to excite me till May when the French Open starts for example. And then July for the Tour De France.

Their losing a lot of sports to competitors must be a worry. When you cant do the cricket in NZ thats a huge loss.

yeah I am the same.

I put it on for a month to watch the Australian Open. Did not renew.

Will happily dip in and out as there are competitions I want to watch.

They are putting a bunch of Rugby on Sky Open now too, so I can always Chromecast the Sky GO app to my TV if there is a game I want to watch.

[LaserEyeKiwi]

Despite all the anecdotes on here, customer base is pretty sticky and SKT gouging them nicely.

Did you read the results?

SkyBox & Neon had big drops in subscriber numbers (SkyBox: 517k users to 501k users, Neon: 318k users dropped to 277k users), Sky Sport Now the only growth driver (168k users to 206k users), which it should be, it’s the only valuable content they own.

The entire company now relies on rugby rights, which run for 2 more years. Luckily at this stage there doesn’t appear to be a serious contender for them, other than NZR itself going it alone (can’t see that happening…yet).

[mistaTea]

Did you read the results?

SkyBox & Neon had big drops in subscriber numbers, Sky Sport Now the only growth driver (which it should be, it’s the only valuable content they own).

The entire company now relies on rugby rights, which run for 2 more years. Luckily at this stage there doesn’t appear to be a serious contender for them, other than NZR itself going it alone (can’t see that happening…yet).

yeah, the STB drop was roughly in line with previous drops (although a big acceleration in the last 6 months which is something to keep an eye on).

The big drop in NEON is a cause for concern.

SSN plenty of room for growth and I agree that Sky should be able to get another deal. Sky can't pay anywhere near the reported $100M a year Martin agreed to last time.

So if Sky can't pay anywhere near that, NZR have to make up the funds elsewhere. Perhaps a deal with Sky while retaining the right to go OTT too. Let's see.

[LaserEyeKiwi]

yeah, the STB drop was roughly in line with previous drops (although a big acceleration in the last 6 months which is something to keep an eye on).

The big drop in NEON is a cause for concern.

SSN plenty of room for growth and I agree that Sky should be able to get another deal. Sky can't pay anywhere near the reported $100M a year Martin agreed to last time.

So if Sky can't pay anywhere near that, NZR have to make up the funds elsewhere. Perhaps a deal with Sky while retaining the right to go OTT too. Let's see.

NEON is mostly garbage content now, they just don’t have the critical mass of exclusive content rights anymore that make it worthwhile, and yet they are charging the highest monthly fee of all the streamers, when they struggle to even compete content wise with the free TVNZ+ app.

[Goob]

Crickey streaming is tough. NEON content softens and people start to plug out right away.

Wonder how this plays out long-term for Sky Sport Now? Great if more people transition to SSN for now but overall revenue takes a double hit (around half the ARPU + impact of subs dipping in and out).

RWC in 1H24 makes an underlying forecast of recurring SSN subscribers difficult. Thought the answer to this question on the call was v poor.. see here: https://imgur.com/SXOkJ3Z

[Entrep]

Tried getting rid of the decoder for the Fan Pass app instead and hated it. Too slow.

So back to the decoder...

[mistaTea]

Tried getting rid of the decoder for the Fan Pass app instead and hated it. Too slow.

So back to the decoder...

Fanpass was about 5 years ago.