Sky squeezes even more money from customers, gets fewer new ones BSkyB attracted fewer new subscribers to its TV, broadband and phone products in its last quarter even though the company enjoyed a healthy increase in sales. The broadcaster, which is 39 per cent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and lost its chairman James Murdoch in April, said its total subscriber base rose by 48,000 …
It's what they call a mature market, they're in the Pay-TV market and if you've no cable option then they're the monopoly supplier. There's no real reason for there to be a vast influx of new customers, in fact I would suspect that their customer base will stagnate in numbers, although there will always be some churn depending on their latest gimmick/
Hardly surprising that although still increasing their subscriber base, they are doing so by smaller amounts each quarter. With over 10 million subscribers and approximately 26 million households in the UK, they can't be far off a dish on 50% of properties. With just about everyone who wants sky, already having it, its the ARPU thats important and the continued push for broadband take-up that are the key factors for continued company health.
Without pay for tv everything would be on free to air.
Next time Free to air looses something to sky (like F1) remember its the fault of people who give money to sky, so that sky can pay more to the greedy bastards in control (The 'bernies'). Without the idiots giving money to sky the 'bernies' wouldn't be so obnoxious.
I'm pretty sure the BBC paid for F1 too, which means we all did...
Now just the people who want to watch it pay. It's more expensive to the consumer of course because on the BBC everyone paid for F1 even if they didn't watch it, hence subsidising it for those who did. The flip side is they now spend that money on other programmes, some of which you might watch, some you might not. Ultimately though F1 was never free for anyone - even given a fixed mandatory licence fee, you effectively paid in programmes they couldn't afford to make while they were showing it.
If you wanted the BBC to pay for all TV there would only be a fraction of what's available now as the cost of it would result in an unrealistic licence fee, not to mention that their infrastructure simply wouldn't allow them broadcasting so many channels.
> Who said satellite dishes were for poor people
The line that pops out of the press release is the number of people taking BSkyB's TV product (they split TV, HD and Multiroom into 3 different "products" - presumably you need to have "TV" as a gateway to HD or M/R). That grew by 95,000 punters in a total TV base of over 10 million - or less than a 1% increase, Most of the new TV "product" sales - HD, etc. seem to be conversions of existing customers taking additional products.
So it would appear that so far as their TV activities are concerned, most of their growth is from existing customers taking more products, with only a small number of new customers. That lack of "new blood" doesn't bode well for future years' product stuffing.
I'm betting that a lot of people are asking themselves how many channels they actually need and why they should be paying a small fortune to Sky when both Freesat and Freeview offer a substantial number of channels for nothing these days.
I'm sure some people are hooked on Discovery or sports / movies and can't imagine life without Sky. But for those who aren't in that situation, the amount of money that they save by switching is significant.
I think that the happy times for companies like Sky are soon to be over.
Take me for instance, I am a Spurs fan (for my sins) and want to watch Spurs on TV when possible. But I dont want to shell out £40 a month for the privilege of being able to watch the golf in 3D, Right now, Spurs offer Spurs TV Online for about £50 a year, it gives you additional commentary and access to live audio, no live matches.
I, personally, would be more than happy to pay a little extra if it means I can get live matches from them than Sky. And this leads me circuitously to my point: I dont need all the extra crap that comes with the sports channels on Sky, I am happy to pay for access to just my clubs matches and noone elses. The same could be said about F1, I dont want the rest, just the ability to watch the F1 and I am happy to pay a fee to do so.
In the past, we had to get all the right packages in order to qualify for what we want, ending up with paying more out each month for stuff we just dont need. Surely it is about time that people like Sky can offer simplified channel packages that are streamed over the Internet?
Imagine that get your wish and can buy packages. To make it viable for these "smaller" companies they charge you £14.99 pcm for Spurs TV with live matches and £14.99 for F1
So you're paying £30 for 2 services - for that much you get all of sport on Sky's channels, the only thing you're missing is every Spurs match live (although you do get it the First Match choice thing on a sat night).
I gave up Sky last year and haven't missed it (there are alternatives...) but the one thing that "Competition" didn't give me was a better deal when it came to football.
Before Sky was forced to only buy a max 5 of the 6 packages I could get footy on a monthly bill and an extra 50 premier league games for £50 on the PPV side.
Following competition Setanta wanted £9.95 a month from me - an EXTRA £70 a year. Please pass on my thanks to the EuroC***ts who came up with the wheeze.
am I the only one that actually thinks they offer a fair product? I certainly do not begrudge the amount I pay them each month...
all copper based Broadband requires a telephone rental - Sky is cheaper than the others...
Sky offers a truly unlimited, non shaped, non-blocked, fast internet connection for less than the others...
Sky TV offers more HD channels than any other non cable supplier
Sky HD+ box is free, phone app works well, planner is add free and easy enough to navigate
All in, after paying for a PVR and for what Id pay to BT for this area, for a comparable product (ignoring the speed/shaping on their broadband) I actually make a saving... If I was in a cable area things might be different, but my only experience with cable is laggy internet, huge speed fluctuations and a pretty poor cable box experience.
I always get a good deal, I swap between Virgin and Sky virtually every year.
This time Sky begged me back by giving me a new free Sky HD box, £50 cash bonus and 75% off all entertainment and movies (didn't want sports) for 12 months. I pay £20.50 a month for all entertainment, all movies and the HD package (which for some reason also includes F1).
Usually when the 12 months is up Virgin will be offering something similar and sometimes when Quidco are offering huge cash backs, I actually make a little bit over the year.
Meanwhile the loyal customers keep paying full price year in and year out.
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