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Does Sky have a future?
PrinceOfDenmark
Posts: 2,761 Forum Member
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It appears there are about 25M BBC licence payers, and BBC1 achieves a 78% average daily reach.
There are apparently about 9M Sky subscribers and yet Sky One's daily reach is a pitiful 4.6%.
ITV gets 31%, so why would any advertiser bother with Sky One? Is it just really cheap?
Are Sky purely propped up these days by sport subscribers? If so, isn't that a fairly precarious position to be in, given BT Sport's recent play.
(I say this as someone who's considering cancelling his long-standing Sky subscription, as the Movie offering is redundant now compared to other providers, Sky Atlantic seems to be the only worthwhile Sky channel, and they've lost all UK rugby, and half the football - and in response to this, they've put their prices up)
There are apparently about 9M Sky subscribers and yet Sky One's daily reach is a pitiful 4.6%.
ITV gets 31%, so why would any advertiser bother with Sky One? Is it just really cheap?
Are Sky purely propped up these days by sport subscribers? If so, isn't that a fairly precarious position to be in, given BT Sport's recent play.
(I say this as someone who's considering cancelling his long-standing Sky subscription, as the Movie offering is redundant now compared to other providers, Sky Atlantic seems to be the only worthwhile Sky channel, and they've lost all UK rugby, and half the football - and in response to this, they've put their prices up)
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I'm sure you don't need to worry about them , the latest financials showed half year retail subscription revenues of nearly £3.1 billion.
25 million BBC licence payers at £145.50 a pop gives the BBC 3.6 billion in annual revenues
9 million Sky subscribes at 21.50 a month works out at 2.3 billion pounds a year. Not as much as the BBC but not completely out of the ball park. And as well as sport many Sky subscribers will pay for extra like HD or Entertainment Extra.
Sky make their money from the premium channels, Sports and Movies.
So if they can get a decent OD service going they will stay relevant, if not then I don't see why people are going to continue paying money for what they could mostly get on freeview.
Sports is the only saving grace, and if the past is anything to go by, the license prices are just going to keep on booming and subscription costs rising. Also as mentioned by others, there's much more competition now.
As to Entertainment, with Sky One, Sky Atlantic, Sky Arts, Sky Living, I think worse gets to worse the offshoots could close to leave these four core channels.
Well I have Sky EE+, dont wish to bother with the premium channels and rarely watch Sky's other channels, but there is plenty else to watch on there that isnt from Sky themselves!
I enjoy the freedom of the on demand and box sets and their ability to be downloaded to the HDD ec, the HD entertainment offing isnt bad too!
For these reasons Im not about to give up Sky, unless I was in a position that I really couldnt afford what they are charging me, for entertainment extra plus!
I expect to see Sky become more of a sports and entertainment provider to your family's connected devices, rather than a set top box based platform.
Rather than new providers competing against each other, they will more likely complement each other. Sky/Virgin for your linear TV, PVR and catch up, the likes of Netflix through a smart TV for a secondary (arguably superior) on demand service.
sky is a premium product with its revenue added to by commercials.
the bbc is purely a licence fee which its own idiot offerings now mean people can watch "the best" of the bbc on iplayer before its on broadcast tv and legally without a licence!!
skys business model is far from broken. the bbc one is far from working
sky to netflix.
sky offers both structured programming (being able to watch it all now is flawed and a fad. series dont get made unless they show themselves as popular.. just look at how the american shows are launched in the "fall" and then have a mid season break to see if they get commissioned for longer).. they then need to have been "discovered" which is where promotion and structured schedules come in. if all those shows were made and then just made available to watch "at your own speed" like one a week/one a day/in one weekend the model simply wouldnt be able to afford the error rates (if scheduled tv cant make it work, a netflix couldnt). so netflix take big gambles on "likely" previously popular franchises to make headline "exclusive" content, but its the draw to compete and it isnt anything like the networks produce.
sky also offers an "ondemand" service with films and tv series - so it is sky that has the wider "service" with a mix of scheduled, on demand and exclusive content.
without scheduled tv, most shows people would not know were on, and if they just had to guess or go with "recommendations" most tv wouldnt end up being made. people prefer to channel hop and graze most of their tv, not choose it or invest in time in finding what they like by trial and error picking from a list compared to just flipping the channel
Sky is built on sport, sport is a perfect resource for direct-to-viewer services utilising the internet. No need for rights-holders for a middle-man like Sky or BT, just sell it directly to the viewer.
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The BBC TV Licence is not going to be sustainable, within a decade the voices against it will be numerous as the older supporter goes to heaven..
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ITV might be able to work it and survive, they need far more successful programmes than they have and far fewer episodes of soaps. Free-to-air is to their benefit, I wonder if they realise it.
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CH4 has ruined it's "quality" brand, I think it needed that to survive. I mean, what has it got now? Some tatty exploitation "factual" and repeats of Time Team. Of course CH4 bosses will be fine...
The BIB is what is really making me sway to the side of cancelling Sky, and getting a Broadband/Calls deal instead. Simply put, I can watch all the shows I used to require Sky for online, and in many cases far in advance of their UK air date.
For instance, this time of year I would have 15 or so programmes on my Sky+ planner, now its down to 3 and that's it.
The biggest issue with this approach for many though is signal/picture quality.
As for Sky's long term viability, I see nothing in their figures that could lead anyone to think other than their business model is working very well for them.
Heard the same argument about Christianity. I suspect we will still be having the same discussions and predictions 20 years from now.
Well said in my opinion. The BBC will still be around in some form in 20 years I'm sure.
As for Sky, ITV and Channel 4, in my opinion they should let the former two merge. I'd also like to see ITN merge with Sky News (totally separate from the new Supergroup) with the new BSkyB ITV footing the bill for the News (and Current Affairs programming provided by the new News group) of ITV, C4, C5 and Sky News (which would be required to stay free to air). ITV's Regional News and Current Affairs programming would also be taken over by the new News supergroup with stronger programming required.
As for Channel 4, the new Supergroup could also pay for at least a third of that channel's annual budget (C4 would still carry adverts to compete with the new Sky ITV supergroup). You could also have CITV commit to spend at least the same as the BBC on Children's programming.
There is a lot of PSB that could be saved if there was less competition. It needs to be looked over all media not just TV in my opinion
Until the abysmal Broadband speed that covers the majority of the Country is sorted out, then Sky / Terrestial etc will be around for many years yet !
very true these things survive against what seems like all olds!
For some people, like myself, there is no alternative but satellite. I live in a rural area with slow broadband and no prospect of improved speeds, fibre or cable in the forseeable future.
Forgot to mention Netflix. It's the future of tv and more than satisfies my tv show/movie addiction.
For IPTV to take off and really compete with even Freeview on a large scale, broadband speeds in this country really need to improve drastically.
The broadband speeds that most people get in the UK are adequate to view IPTV, but as soon as you attempt to do something else on the internet at the same time it will struggle because of the lack of capacity.
IPTV use is increasing, much as on-demand use is increasing, but the increased use is not directly meaning that broadcast TV use is reducing, as people are using both.
Direct-to-viewer would mean they would be responsible for distribution to them, incurring costs that currently don't exist, and then they would lose revenue they get from selling TV rights to Sky, BT etc.
In its current form it probably is. In the near future I predict a change to the TV Licence being paid automatically via General Taxation, meaning that you get one automatically.
ITV making cheap tat TV appealing to air heads is always going to work in their favour. Simple people will always want to watch their fake Towie like shows.
They cannot afford to always make the highest bid on their own, so they are going to need to find a parent company to buy them (Fox, BT Vodafone) if they are to remain strong in all fronts.
However, whilst it's a loss, Sky has been working hard to offset this with decisive forays into the on-demand and rental spheres. Now TV is proving to be a success - real competition for Netflix and LoveFilm - whilst Sky Store generated over 2 million rentals in Q3 alone last year. Sky is also expected to place considerable emphasis on the development of new and original TV content this year, whilst it's already struck an exclusive deal with HBO and the rights to ITV Encore - making it the only platform able offer the entirety of ITV's TV portfolio.
The fact is, Sky will continue to remain a popular option for TV advertisers. It offers access to highly lucrative niche audience groups through specialist TV channels and boasts a very competitive three-tier package deal. If you're looking for a cost-efficient TV advertising strategy designed to reach specific target audiences, Sky's is by far your best bet - especially with the new Adsmart service in tow.
Stuart Bryan,
Guerillascope.
The good news is that no major sports rights is up for graps until 2020, the bad news is that the exception is the EPL, if BT do well then Sky Sports needs to look into its future....
They have done much better on the entertainment front, my suggestion would be to leave sports to BT (unless they can get a parent company to bankroll them) and focus more on enterainment, then they do have a future...