@ Post 2445:

I doubt any of those matches would get shown on a UK channel. The Russia v Japan game at Parc Eirias is down as an "IRB Challenge Series" game, so may get covered through the IRB in some capacity. When Colwyn Bay hosted it last year it games were streamed live through the IRB's website, but as it's just a one-off next month probably not.

I know that the Japanese games will be shown on a channel over there called "J Sports", and the Romanian games through TVR, so streams may become 'available'.

So reading under "More Matches" on that link the IRB World Sevens rights are part of the deal with the RFU (I imagined it would be separate).

The other main rugby content for Sky, the SANZAR rugby deal, (Super Rugby, Currie, ITM and the SANZAR Internationals) agreement is for the end of 2015 (I think it was a 5-year deal in total, 2011-15).

Here's a small bit of encouraging news for BT Sport, it should encourage more interest in MLS. http://news.sky.com/story/1161346/da...-mls-franchise

BT Sport's website now states they'll be showing Kaiserslauten v St. Pauli in the 2. Bundesliga on Saturday Midday.

BT now states it has signed up 2m BT Sport customers in total and this quarter added an extra 70,000 customers to its TV service which now has about 900,000 customers.

In broadband it took 93% (156,000) of net retail broadband sign-ups this quarter. Numbers dropping its services have reached a five-year low.

BT's share price has risen 60% this year as investors bought into its strategy and rose a further 0.7% this morning.

See link below, registration may be required
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cb6cea58-4...#axzz2irlcagWE

So what about how many they've signed up taking out of the equation those who got it for free because they already had BT broadband when the channel was announced and was launched?

Presumably very few - the aim is to retain and acquire broadband customers.
It's almost like rolling things back to when you got your phone/broadband from BT and your TV from Sky.

This must be encouraging for BT, if I read that right and they signed up 93% of all new broadband customers, that's very good - the free sports channels must at least be having some impact.

Wonder if this and the increased share price will give them more confidence to bid for major Champions League rights.

It's certainly looking more and more likely.

Further snippetts, this time from The Guardian:[LIST][*] Broadband and TV growth beat Sky's in the equivalent quarter. 156,000 BT broadband v 111,000 Sky broadband net adds. 70,000 BT TV customers v 37,000 Sky TV net adds. I suspect the Sky ARPU to be far higher for TV though.Will be interesting to see if this pattern is maintained.[*] Revenues from consumer sales are up 4% in the September quarter, the best performance for 10 years,[*] The loss of customers with a BT telephone line – a key measure of defections from the company – fell to 65,000 for the quarter, the best performance in five years[*] Beat City forecasts to report revenues flat at £4,491m, comfortably outstripping the consensus forecast of £4,440m, while profit before tax was also ahead at £499m.[/LIST]http://www.theguardian.com/business/...lion-customers

From Guardian. 4 million subscribers.

2m- Virgin Media (Free)
Just over 1m- Sky (Pay)
Just under 1m- BT (Free)

Figures in article say BT Sport costs £1.5bn over 3 years.

Very fag packet but lets say 1m pay £15 a month (everyone in HD but ignoring one-off activation fee. Lower n.o of subscribers then they have have, but offset by including everyone as having HD)

1m*15*12 = 180m
Cost of channel = 500m a year

Need 320m from advertising/ extra broadband/ less churn.

I'm not a telecommunications expert so not sure whether the 320m a year is recouped (or close to being)

Parma v Juventus
Kick Off 17:00
BT Sport 2

and that too so lets see if they show that from 5pm or 5 15... and i bet Sky will be watching that too..

The 1m Sky figure includes those who are with BT for broadband and getting it free.

The 1m BT customers are those with BT Vision/YouView and those using the app.

The figures announced today are broadly in line with what we already knew.

What we don't know is how many Sky customers are actually paying the £12/15 per month.

I suspect very few say max 50,000 but I don't think it's a figure anyone is going to be interested in.
BT Sport is just something to differentiate BT's broadband offering in the same way that it offers WiFi zones and makes a big play of its home hub.

Showing in 5.15pm-7pm slot on Sky EPG.




But Sky know that figure, don't they (either from channel activation/other info pertaining to bb provider at the address in question)?

Would Sky know if a card is being activated by a BT Broadband customer or one paying a stand alone subscription to BT?

Actually would have to say, No (as BT absorb all activation fees for their bb contract/BT Sport sign-ups as part of the deal - so nothing to differentiate when they pass the request to activate the channels onto Sky). Hence, if I've made sense there about what I mean, that leaves only BT and that customer knowing! (so Sky don't know after all)

If Sky gets an activation request from BT presumably it can cross-reference to see if it is the broadband supplier to that address. If it's not the broadband supplier then it is likely to be BT but it won't know for sure unless the customer migrated recently from Sky. But I still think it's a figure that BT will not be measured on. However, we may get to know the number of paid subscribers to BT Sport via PlusNet when this service launches next month.

The 156,000 broadband net adds (93% of the market) is a very, very strong number - I can't see the slides yet on BT's website but I think 93% market share of net adds is BT's highest for a very, very long time. So it appears that BT Sport has had a significant positive impact on BT's broadband business.

It's also worth understanding just what that number means for all other ISPs.

If 156,000 is 93% of the market, it means total market net adds were 168,000 (note BT's definition of market excludes VM - it's the market excluding cable).

Now we already know that Sky had 111,000 broadband net adds. So that means the overall market changes were as follows:

BT - up 156,000
Sky - up 111,000
Rest of market - down 99,000
Total market - up 168,000

Who will have lost 99,000 subscribers? Is this bad news for TalkTalk then or are there sufficient smaller providers like EE/Orange and Virgin ADSL losing customers to enable TalkTalk to still maintain its customer base?

I think the number would be far higher than that.

Approx 1m Sky TV customers paid for ESPN. Obviously Sky TV customers with BT broadband won't be paying for BT Sport but a substantial proportion of the 1m who paid for ESPN but don't have BT broadband are likely to be paying for BTS.

It could well be around 500,000.

I also think it is a figure BT will be interested in because there is a limit to how much can be made out of broadband / phone customers.

We'll have to wait for TalkTalk's numbers so we can break them out.

Wonder if this is a one-off? Seems a bit strange to be running it alongside their Premier League offering.

If they have a contract to show games from this League, would be interesting if they showed the Monday night game.

In recent years BT has generally had pretty close to 50% of broadband market net adds.

This quarter 50% of broadband market net adds would have been only 84,000.

But BT actually got 156,000 broadband net adds - so arguably BT has gained an extra approx 72,000 broadband net adds because of BT Sport.

That is only a very rough calculation - there could obviously be other factors which would have affected performance but I think that gives a feel for the impact.

NB. Assumes BT Sport has not affected the total size of the broadband market - ie total market net adds would still have been 168,000 - ie Sky and Rest of market would have done better - ie the 72,000 would have gone to Sky / Rest of market (ie reducing Rest of market's losses)

12th November. http://www.talktalkgroup.com/investo...ts-centre.aspx

Thank you for your other points too re BT Sport-only subscribers.

Yes, Sky does know the figure - because the fee BT pays Sky for free BTS customers is different to the fee BT pays Sky for £12/£15 customers.

(NB. Referring to the fee BT pays Sky for dealing with the card encryption).

See link - page 14:

Free customers - BT pays Sky 10p per month

£12 customers = £10 exc VAT - BT pays Sky 81p per month

£15 customers = £12.50 exc VAT - BT pays Sky 97p per month

http://corporate.sky.com/documents/p...ice_list_3.pdf