Thanks mlt11, great post.

Thanks - no problem - just to say I've just edited in a bit more re broadband and fibre numbers.

Worth remembering that the changes to the BT Sport structure mean their broadband customers now only receive the full package for free if they take out a TV subscription. And those start at £0 per month.

So the commercial value of those new TV subscriptions cannot be gauged without a breakdown. Many could just be existing BT customers not paying anything extra and only taking it to avoid the new £5 per month BT Sport fee.

having the equipment installed could, of course, entice people to take out a subscription. But that would be like Sky counting people taking Freesat from Sky as subscribers as it offers them the same benefit.

Decent results posted by BT. Giving their investment, they probably expected a lot more. Come year end things may look different. Smart play by Sky or bold move by BT on CL rights?

Excellent analysis.
It sounds positive to me, how do you find it and will it get sky thinking?

I think it's a mixed picture - and it's very early days in terms of BT's CL so it wouldn't be sensible to draw any long term conclusions whatever these results had said.

The revenue growth and customer growth look strong. Of the two, the revenue numbers are ultimately much more important - as noted above customers are only of value if they generate revenue. However customer numbers are still of interest as there will be upselling opportunities and they can be a "leading indicator" of revenues in the sense that new customers often come in on offers which later expire leading to higher revenues in the future.

However, profits are down - which means the higher revenues have been more than offset by the higher costs of CL. There's also the question as to how much of the annual CL cost has hit the P&L this quarter - I imagine the amount charged is less than 25% - if so the cost to be charged in the remaining 3 quarters will be more than 75%.

But even if profits are down it doesn't mean it's a bad investment decision because BT will be thinking long term and it's the nature of many new projects that losses have to be incurred in the short run before profits can be generated longer term.

In the short term, BT's profits are undoubtedly lower due to having the CL (and Sky's profits are higher due to not having the CL). But that's only the short term - it's far too early to make any proper judgements re the longer term - which is what ultimately matters - we'll have to see what happens going forward.

As for Sky - Sky's results out last week show that they haven't been damaged (at least not yet - still early days) from losing the CL and profits are up, benefitting from the cost saving. Of course that saving is only the £80m per year they were previously paying for CL - if they had paid the required £300m+ per year to outbid BT and retain CL their profits would have taken a hit with that additional cost in their P&L.

The issue for Sky is slightly different - it's the knock-on effect - yes they can lose the CL without damage but it then pushes up the importance of the PL to them even more - which of course forced them to pay that much more for the PL than would otherwise have been the case. For Sky it's next year's P&L account which will be the interesting one - their profits surely have to fall significantly next year when their P&L has to take an extra £632m hit from PL rights.

I sometimes watch through the app and have to say I think the picture quality is outstanding, times better than Sky go.

Setanta go app for BT Sport in Ireland for use on internet explorer is better than sky go here

The quality when using the BT App with Chromecast is excellent. You'd be hard-pressed to tell that it's an internet stream.

This.

Saves me the £4 a month HD if nothing else. Hopefully they are working on allowing the "enhanced player" to work via the Chromecast on CL nights.

Also worth noting in the wider European picture that the Bundesliga rights auction is on the horizon - Sky's European acquisitions were really all about Germany, its where they see significant growth prospects and presumably they will be willing to bid aggressively to hold their current position if a serious challenger emerges.

Even better sideloaded onto an Amazon Fire box, where you can change the output to 50Hz.

Unless the Bundesliga want to go down the commercial route of operating like the PL and having more games moved outside the traditional Sat 3.30pm local KO (which fans do not want them to do) - I cant see these rights being massively valueable given they clash with PL games.

I hope BT Sport retain the bundesliga, serie a and ligue 1 live rights as the EFS is worth the setanta pack subscription here in ireland

Yes I would agree. I did have it through chromecast up till this season when took out BT broadband so paid £5 per month to view via sky rather than pay the same for the app.

Still use app every now and again when the wife puts her foot down and wants to watch something

Agree 100%. As long as your WIFI / Broadband is good, then the pic quality is outstanding.

Agreed!

SkyGo quality is really poor IMHO

Just wonder if Weds return for Arsenal in Bayern will get close to 900,00 considering the first got over 750,00.

Well there will be 54,000 fewer Arsenal fans actually at the game.

They'll be in the pub

Any overnights for the Chelsea Liverpool game from yesterday on BT Sport 1 ?

going for 800k?

Im punting for 850k - 1m

Apologies should have been clearer - I was referring to the Bundesliga rights in Germany.

with an extra 20k watching Mourinho make a total disgrace of himself during what is now a famous 55sec interview