SKT Sky Network Television Limited.

[Dlownz]

When sky's next revenue guidence. I'm going to make guess since everything is a guess of upgraded revenue guidence of 660-690. The revenue increase in july/August may be the lightbox users now being charged and theyve held on to more users than what they thought. I suppose the next market update is November.

[mistaTea]

Agree with you mistaTea on a new SKY box.

This is where SKY needs to do the math. Tech is not what it use to be.

The current and older sky boxes are easier to maintain/repair, as they serve a single purpose. And this was a necessity. There were no alternates.

Building a new box especially for Apps is only the start. Maintenance - Software wise is a major hurdle. Security/OS upgrades, bugs etc. And eventually as software matures, your hardware does not keep up as well. And not to mention additional call out's and also any hardware/warranty issues with the box. These are all costs, manpower and resources. Especially when customers have an alternate.

They could instead partner with existing devices on the market and recommend/offer choices to consumers. Example, Amazon fire 4k stick with Dolby HDR or Similar. You can buy these on Sale for less than $50-$70 on sale.

If i was SKT, i would focus my energy on constantly improving/maturing my Apps. Just like Netflix. I would release these Apps to work on most devices out there. Most Tv manufacturer's and most of the popular devices in the market. I believe this is where their focus and resources needs to go. Software is king.

I for one would never buy an additional box. And that is perhaps why Vodafone tv box may not be as popular. Consumers already have some sort of smart device at home, they are comfortable with. Just my thoughts and input.

Totally mate - for satellite you have to have a STB...but in the new world of streaming, it really is not necessary. And you are right, by the time you factor in the cost of maintaining and upgrading the boxes, one would be excused for asking why we need to have an offering like this.

When Martin canned the Infinite Video project to focus on streaming, I could see why - building the new STB would be expensive, and how much return can you realistically expect from it?

Look, maybe their analysis will conclude that there is a market for it. If it stacks up, all good.

But the focus, in my view, needs to be in building out world class apps and ensuring they are available on all of the platforms that the vast majority want.

That includes working with TV manufacturers to ensure that TV's made for the NZ market have a 'Sky GO' button on the remote (like most of them now have for NETFLIX and YOUTUBE).

I think they will get much more uptake of the product by doing this, as opposed to trying to hock another STB...an extra cost that the vast majority can't be bothered with since it really is unnecessary to be able to stream content these days.

The way they made it sound though...the analysis is at an advanced stage and they have all but given the final sign off to go ahead.

[Zaphod]

The box isn't being developed by Sky, it's being customised. We used that box before when we lived overseas; it's an Nvidia Shield TV, probably last years version and it is rebranded by a number of companies. It provided a much better UI/UX than TV based apps.

[mistaTea]

The box isn't being developed by Sky, it's being customised. We used that box before when we lived overseas; it's an Nvidia Shield TV, probably last years version and it is rebranded by a number of companies. It provided a much better UI/UX than TV based apps.

Thanks for sharing that info - it does look like a nice UI - and perhaps they think it stacks up because the customisation costs won't be very high?

Time will tell if another STB in the market is successful. If the UI/UX really is amazeballs maybe they will get more interest than my initial thinking. If it is very popular then awesome, I am more than happy to be wrong

[ba9]

Yes. Nvidia Shield is a great box. Powerful specs running Android TV. I currently use this. Bought mine back in 2015 when it first came out. Still going strong and nvidia still keeps it up-to date. It was around $200 USD with the gaming controller back then. (no remote)

When i subscribed to SKY, SKY SPORT App did not show on the Shield PLAY STORE. Got it sort of working via Side loading the App and using a mouse. As the App is not optimized for shield. Neon doesn't show either (don't subscribe to neon) "

Either way, SKT need to first work on getting their APPS to work on most devices in the market. I like the idea of "SKY GO" button on TV Remotes as mistaTea says

[mistaTea]

Yes. Nvidia Shield is a great box. Powerful specs running Android TV. I currently use this. Bought mine back in 2015 when it first came out. Still going strong and nvidia still keeps it up-to date. It was around $200 USD with the gaming controller back then. (no remote)

When i subscribed to SKY, SKY SPORT App did not show on the Shield PLAY STORE. Got it sort of working via Side loading the App and using a mouse. As the App is not optimized for shield. Neon doesn't show either (don't subscribe to neon) "

Either way, SKT need to first work on getting their APPS to work on most devices in the market. I like the idea of "SKY GO" button on TV Remotes as mistaTea says

https://youtu.be/OyAfh1SqNPI

The UI does indeed look nice - it will be interesting to see how Sky customise it for their content.

Still not completely sold on it...BUT...this STB looks like it has the potential to help a user surface content from multiple services into one handy UI.

That would be a gap in the market that Sky could possibly fill. So when you log in, on your home page you see what is trending and what is recommended for you based on your viewing history for all services you subscribe to. Helps you decide what to watch without necessarily having to launch each app and go hunting.

That would be a positive and could be popular.

Let’s see what happens - personally, I am 50/50 on the idea.

[tqtq]

https://youtu.be/OyAfh1SqNPI

The UI does indeed look nice - it will be interesting to see how Sky customise it for their content.

Still not completely sold on it...BUT...this STB looks like it has the potential to help a user surface content from multiple services into one handy UI.

That would be a gap in the market that Sky could possibly fill. So when you log in, on your home page you see what is trending and what is recommended for you based on your viewing history for all services you subscribe to. Helps you decide what to watch without necessarily having to launch each app and go hunting.

That would be a positive and could be popular.

Let’s see what happens - personally, I am 50/50 on the idea.

It does look nice. Very nice in fact. I wonder if it could be used for Satellite customers too? It’d also be a nice offering for new broadband customers that don’t have the latest tech for streaming. It’s a good idea to use off the shelf tech and customise it.

[mistaTea]

It’s a good idea to use off the shelf tech and customise it.

Totally, it took the insurance companies a while to figure that out too, but most of them of stopped building bespoke solutions.

The system does look good, and perhaps customising the box won’t cost ‘too much’ and is worth a punt.

Sceptical though I may be, ultimately I will trust Martin’s good judgement. His team have far more expertise than I do - and hopefully the new STB becomes the new ‘must have’ like MySky once was.

[mistaTea]

Remember, Vodafone TV customers are included in the ARPSU figures of ~$20. Sure, Vodafone get to clip the ticket on any Sky bundles that are purchased on that platform...but if the Vodafone TV customers are taking packages in a similar way that Satellite customers are, then I would expect Sky to still be getting $50-$60 per customer on average.

If a significant amount of the 404K streaming subs were taking Vodafone TV, and paying Sky $50-$60 on average, I would expect APRSU to be much higher than $20 (especially given the average Sky Sport NOW sub was probably just over $40 too).

Now,I don't know the breakdown of the 404K subs - but clearly the vast majority right now are NEON subs. Damn near three quarters of these subs will be NEON right now.

So let's say the remaining 104 subs are split between Vodafone TV and Sky Sport NOW. What would that look like? 60/40? 70/30?

I don't think Vodafone TV has been very successful - because after a couple of years they only likely have 60 or 70 thousand customers (my best estimate)...

Sh1t, I have just realised that I have made a terrible blunder in my reasoning.

Vodafone TV subs are not included in the 404K streaming subs.

They are part of the 585K satellite subscriptions!

So Vodafone TV may be doing a lot better than I thought - customers looking to hand back their MySky could be sold on the idea of cheaper Sky via Vodafone TV.

It also means those 404K subs are purely Neon/Lightbox (now merged) and Sky Sport NOW.

If the numbers of VTV are higher than my initial thinking - then perhaps this new STB does indeed have more merit than I initially supposed.

[Akane]

Sky's core market demographic is older people. As house prices go up they get richer and spend more on discretionary items, like Sky.

The younger generation, in their 20's and 30's, forgo Sky, but once they jump on the property ladder and get their mortgage repayments under control, they then spend on discretionary items, like Sky.

There are no cheaper streaming options. It was $50 to watch Mulan on Disney+. Spark sport is just as expensive with less content. Netflix is competitive but the average consumer is willing to spend more than just $15 per month.

Long term trend is more media consumption. This is not a temporary trend. Average screen time is going up.

I don't know about that.

I did a bit of door-to-door thing in my previous job, in the areas with lower social economic bracket, a lot of them spend more on in-home entertainment, the ares in the higher social economic areas tend to be busier with their lives and don't have much time to sit in front of the TV all the time.

Maybe they do purchase Pay TV services and not use them, but that's another story.