Originally Posted by samburrows:
“Barely seem believable actually, particularly the Earnings figures.”
“Barely seem believable actually, particularly the Earnings figures.”
Agreed - must confess I was very surprised when I saw the EBITDA number.
There just have to be significant cost savings being achieved elsewhere within "Consumer" - and Consumer's costs include the charges from Openreach.
But it's entirely possible that that is the case.
I've posted in the past when looking at Sky's results that it's important to understand that about half of the costs of Sky's TV business (ie not talking about broadband / phone) relate to stuff other than programming. That fact takes some digesting. But it's an important fact as it opens up an opportunity for very big cost savings if they can reduce digibox / installation / repairs / customer service / marketing / commission (etc!) costs.
Now I'm sure something similar may well apply to BT's Consumer business. Obviously its cost base will be very different - with TV in its (relatively) early growth stages the main costs will be in connection with the phone and broadband business. But whatever the details are, it may well be that there is big scope for savings and, as I said above, slide 14 of the Presentation confirms that (without telling us how much relates to Consumer).
In conclusion, the extent to which both Sky and BT can reduce non-programming costs (both within TV and also phone / broadband) will have a big impact on the success of their businesses going forward and will also have a big impact on how much they can spend on programming (including sports rights).



