[Jaycee Dove]

Now that we know Sky have 'gained' one extra premiere league game per season from August 2013 - but in reality 'lost' their top package - meaning they lose much control over the top pick games and will no longer get to screen quite a few of the major matches - how is this going to effect us subscribers?

Sky apparently had to massively increase what they are paying the league to not even stand still (presumably to guarantee showing the most number of matches per season against a threat from other bidders - such as BT - who won the other rights). In fact their costs have risen 40% for a somewhat worse set of rights.

Are they going to do a tie up deal with BT, do you think, to try to minimise the loss of the better matches?

How will their strategy handle the huge cost increase? Will we see higher than expected subs? Will they need to rethink the way they offer various mixes?

The pay TV landscape has changed tonight with this news. How do you think Sky will deal with the threat that BT now poses and the possible looming threat of Al Jazeera if they were (as rumoured) the bidders who made Sky have to increase their first bid by such huge margins.

Will AJ try to buy Sky? Or will they maybe try to buy ESPN UK now that they have no Premiere League rights and then return in the future with that platform acquired to try to outbid Sky in a multi billion shoot out?

Either way how is this going to effect us as subscribers?

[Radiomike]

To answer most of your questions Jaycee I suspect we'll all be paying more for this deal in higher subs.

Whether BT make a success of it remains to be seen - getting the rights is one thing, making money from them from scratch another.

You're getting ahead of yourself with your expectations of this changing the landscape in the way you anticipate - BT doesn't pose any immediate threat and as for AJ buying Sky all I can say is with all the hoo-hah about News International's bid for them what chance has an Arab broadcaster got. Zilch.

AJ won't buy ESPN UK either - unless ESPN decides to focus on US sports in Europe only. Questionable as to whether logistics in the UK make it as promising a target for AJ as elsewhere.

But to finish where I started this deal means all subscribers will be paying more IMO.

[rawly]

It's quite mad 70% increase on last time £3Bn. Rather obscene if you ask me in the current climate. I moved house recently and dropped Sky Sports on my new Install. Glad I won't be forking out towards the £1.5Bn more that Sky need.

Silly money really. I can foresee the bubble busrting on Football Rights, it's completely disconnected to most people's finances. It can't be justified in any sense.

[Jaycee Dove]

Sadly, I suspect you are right.

How Sky are going to sell a big price rise for a less impressive selection of matches is going to be an interesting PR exercise. But then they are good at those.

I guess they will try to do some decent deal with BT if they can get a better one than Virgin do out of BT over carriage then they will be happy.

And I expect there is more competition between Virgin and BT and more scope for cooperation between BT and Sky.

So that might help mitigate any rises.

[rawly]

Well, BT do have the "Top4" indeed. The only positive I might see, as someone who generally only watched 'my team' is as they are going to be streaming the games, I'd like to just be able to choose to pay for 1 game now and then for say £5 a go, and I could buy into such a pricing model if BT offered that option.

[Jeff_Edwards]

Sky have the same number of matches and carry on with Super Sunday and MNF, the prices were probably going to go up anyway, so don't believe they have a less impressive selection of matches.

With the added competition, it may make them more competitive, maybe ESPN will be included now free for ether World subscribers or Sky Sports subs as this would counter rthe big drop in subscribers they will suffer.

[Jason C]

How big an increase in subscription rates do people think is likely?

[ktla5]

Price Rise: I guess it will be around £1.00 the usual annual increase, anymore and quite a few will say 'No thankyou'

[Marti S]

I suspect that non sports subscribers will see a price hike to help cover this because they know they cant put the cost of the sports pack up too much in one go, otherwise they would probably lose too many sports subscribers to finance it.

[Barnes5603]

I am still massively shocked by this but you have to say fair play to BT.

During the ofcom wholesale case I remember many sky supporters saying that BT should take the risks themselves like sky have and do their own channels....well now they are!

[big_hard_lad]

Originally Posted by Barnes5603

I am still massively shocked by this but you have to say fair play to BT.

During the ofcom wholesale case I remember many sky supporters saying that BT should take the risks themselves like sky have and do their own channels....well now they are!

I, for one, am glad to see BT taking a risk. Lets hope they do a good job.

[Radiomike]

It will be interesting to see what ESPN do - refocus on their other existing rights, pursue new UK and European event rights for ESPN UK, or retrench into a niche US sports provider role, possibly with some add-in European material. Will we keep ESPN UK alongside ESPN America and ESPN Classic.

After next year I wonder if the sub will stay at £9.99 or reduce to say £6.99.

Imteresting times.

[Dave-H]

I assume now BT have EPL rights for the first time that they will have to start their own sports channel.
Surely they won't make the matches only available to BT Vision customers or by internet streaming. They will presumably start "BT Sports" or whatever, which will be available on Sky and Virgin, as Setanta Sports was and ESPN is. They already have "Vision Sport" on BT Vision, so maybe they'll just expand that to other platforms.
Do they have any other sports rights at the moment though? Will they run a part time channel just with EPL football, sort of like Sky Sports F1, or will they try to acquire enough other sports to justify a full-time sports channel?

[Radiomike]

Originally Posted by Dave-H

Do they have any other sports rights at the moment though? Will they run a part time channel just with EPL football, sort of like Sky Sports F1, or will they try to acquire enough other sports to justify a full-time sports channel?

Now those are some of the £246m a year questions.

[ktla5]

Will they be able to afford to launch a channel on all platfoms now they have forked out all that dosh in bidding, maybe they thought they would not win, and now find themselves in a bit of a quandry?

Can see phone bills / rental going up to cover costs though. and will BTV be made available on all ISP's ?

[Barnes5603]

Originally Posted by ktla5

Will they be able to afford to launch a channel on all platfoms now they have forked out all that dosh in bidding, maybe they thought they would not win, and now find themselves in a bit of a quandry?

Can see phone bills / rental going up to cover costs though. and will BTV be made available on all ISP's ?

Yeah that will be it. They bidded for a laugh and have no real intention of being a sports broadcaster.

[Jaycee Dove]

BT have confirmed they plan to launch a channel and that it will have added interactive features. What they say suggests these will be exclusive to BT customers. But that they will be looking to make the channel itself accessible via other platforms - eg satellite.

In fact, they have to do that as they will never sell a high sub channel for 38 games to Sky subscribers if it is only in SD (as some are saying they might keep HD as a BT customer exclusive) and HD simply could not be offered to a lot of BTs customers without this being via satellite unless there is going to be some massive and rapid expansion of infinity into large swathes of rural UK.

So BT really could do with some kind of deal with Sky to have any chance of gaining large numbers of subscribers at say £10 pm. They might even cut a deal for Sky to produce the games for them, with some reciprocal bonus Sky content included (eg F1???) to boost the value of the BT sub on all platforms, and in exchange Sky get to offer the BT add on at a cut price to its subscribers.

It would make sense for Sky and BT to do this.

Virgin might want to try as well (as with their free ESPN with XL deal now) but BT and Virgin are really competitors over telecoms in a way that Sky really is not, so BT might be more inclined to get into bed with Sky than with Virgin as it would benefit both companies in their individual battles against Virgin.

[BKM]

Originally Posted by Jaycee Dove

So BT really could do with some kind of deal with Sky to have any chance of gaining large numbers of subscribers at say £10 pm. They might even cut a deal for Sky to produce the games for them, with some reciprocal bonus Sky content included (eg F1???) to boost the value of the BT sub on all platforms, and in exchange Sky get to offer the BT add on at a cut price to its subscribers.

It would make sense for Sky and BT to do this.

You have not factored in the other important feaure - that is football in pubs and clubs!!!!

Sky marketed BOTH Setana (and later ESPN) EPL rights to "pubs and clubs" - and this is a pretty important component of any bids.

It is likely that BT's bid won't make sense without such premises - and they will want all matches to be in HD!

[Jaycee Dove]

I agree.

There is no way that customers are going to subscribe to a non HD football channel - whatever those non HD hold outs are saying.

The difference in quality is most marked in things like football and if BT tried to fob off a second best quality channel to Sky subscribers they would find few takers. To make it work they have to go HD.

And your thoughts on pubs and clubs are an interesting added reason why BT and Sky might be talking as we speak.

[CTD101]

If indeed BT are to offer any form of HD to its own Vision customers it will have to be via IPTV. To do that the infinity rollout will have to be significantly increased to allow that to happen on a large enough scale. Problem then for BT is in order to watch all the football on the BT platform you would need:

BT landline £14.60
BT infinity 1 £18.00
BT Vision £12.50 (which gives you unlimited on demand)
Sky Sports 1 2 £18.20

Thats £63.30 with only BT matches in HD. As pointed out by others, HD is the driver for the vast majority of people. If BT do launch a HD channel on Sat and Cable, they are making those platforms more attractive than their own. Currently Sky Sports 1 and 2 is only available in SD on Vision. Factor in also that your Sky Sports subs also give you Champions League games, plus things like SkyGo, 3D and Sky Sports 3, 4 and News in HD too.

A similar bundle on Sky would be

Landline £12.25
Fibre £20.00
HD pack £10.25
Entertainment £20.00
Sports Pack £20.00
BT Sports £10.00 (estimate)

That comes to £92.50. That's the closest comparison and obviously you get more channels, more HD channels and things like SkyGo, Anytime+ with Sky. With Sky though you don't have to have a landline and or broadband but you're forced to have both to have BT Vision

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by CTD101

If indeed BT are to offer any form of HD to its own Vision customers it will have to be via IPTV. To do that the infinity rollout will have to be significantly increased to allow that to happen on a large enough scale. Problem then for BT is in order to watch all the football on the BT platform you would need:

BT landline £14.60
BT infinity 1 £18.00
BT Vision £12.50 (which gives you unlimited on demand)
Sky Sports 1 2 £18.20

Thats £63.30 with only BT matches in HD. As pointed out by others, HD is the driver for the vast majority of people. If BT do launch a HD channel on Sat and Cable, they are making those platforms more attractive than their own. Currently Sky Sports 1 and 2 is only available in SD on Vision. Factor in also that your Sky Sports subs also give you Champions League games, plus things like SkyGo, 3D and Sky Sports 3, 4 and News in HD too.

A similar bundle on Sky would be

Landline £12.25
Fibre £20.00
HD pack £10.25
Entertainment £20.00
Sports Pack £20.00
BT Sports £10.00 (estimate)

That comes to £92.50. That's the closest comparison and obviously you get more channels, more HD channels and things like SkyGo, Anytime+ with Sky. With Sky though you don't have to have a landline and or broadband but you're forced to have both to have BT Vision

To be fair though £63.30 is vastly cheaper than £92.50 , I wouldn't leave Sky for BT as HD is a must in our house however I'm sure many will be influenced on price alone.

[CTD101]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

To be fair though £63.30 is vastly cheaper than £92.50 , I wouldn't leave Sky for BT as HD is a must in our house however I'm sure many will be influenced on price alone.

True it is a big difference, but if you take out a landline and broadband from Sky it comes to £60.25 which is cheaper than BT

Edit. Also I've assumed BT will give their customers BT Sport for free although that's still up for debate

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by CTD101

True it is a big difference, but if you take out a landline and broadband from Sky it comes to £60.25 which is cheaper than BT

Edit. Also I've assumed BT will give their customers BT Sport for free although that's still up for debate

I'm currently happy with my Sky package , however Sky will have to be very careful with price rises as people now have greater choice. In my experience Sky's products are generally excellent however they are starting to look pricey and I agree with analysts Sky has vastly overpaid for the EPL rights this time around

[Jaycee Dove]

All of the above discussion suggests some kind of Sky/BT deal would suit both parties.

Together - if they wanted - they could squeeze VM badly.

BT are never going to expect to challenge Sky via satellite but need satellite to reach mass audiences (though they will increase sales to those who cannot/will not have a dish).

Sky obviously see BT as the lesser of two evils (if Al Jazeera even bid - do we know that they did yet?)

So they have a sort of incentive to help BT succeed, because if they do not then a big bad monster might be looming over the hill waiting to pounce in three years time.

It just looks ripe for some kind of special relationship to develop over these rights.

[Barnes5603]

Originally Posted by Jaycee Dove

I agree.

There is no way that customers are going to subscribe to a non HD football channel - whatever those non HD hold outs are saying.

The difference in quality is most marked in things like football and if BT tried to fob off a second best quality channel to Sky subscribers they would find few takers. To make it work they have to go HD.

And your thoughts on pubs and clubs are an interesting added reason why BT and Sky might be talking as we speak.

Really? Are you saying ESPN and Sky Sports on DTT have no subscribers?