Very interesting points Wakey, but it's still not evidence. You have added nothing but further opinion (which I value, but can't it as anything other what it is, an opinion)

By the way, Roku are extremely open with their collaboration with Sky. So open, they are currently using their connection with Sky as a "successful example" for their new "Roku-Powered" drive to enter new global markets.

Finally, this type of exclusivity you are talking about is very different from offering a business's own product at an exclusive outlet. This is blocking a product from a shop and can run foul of various trading practices.

If Sky were really blocking Amazon from being on the Roku platform, and if Amazon wanted to be on Roku, Amazon would have a team of lawyers on the case right away, not to mention make a big deal in the media about it all. What incredible publicity it would be for Amazon fighting against the UK's Pay_TV nemesis that everyone loves to hate.

12million dollars or pounds? I thought we were talking about the UK here? And which 12 million are you speaking of? Please show a link from Sky or Roku (or a reliable member of the press) that indicates $12million was paid by Sky to Roku to keep Amazon from that platform.

Oh, and if Sky Go won't go on Roku because they don't want to eat into their multi-room agreements, then why are they currently testing an Xbox One and PS4 app? Won't this eat into their multi-room agreements?

And why even mention multi-room accounts anyway? Sky has a tight reign on how many Sky Go streams can play at the same time, and they could add a thousand new platforms to support, and this won't make a difference. If Sky Go say only x amount of streams can be made in one go, why does it matter if there are 10,000 different platforms available?

Its a bit different about saying 'Sky invested $12million in us and their major shareholder NewsCorp much more than that and we have partnered successfully on Sky's NowTV box' and being open about what veto rights that investment has given a Sky and NewsCorp.

And platforms are allowed to select which apps run on it, just like a Apple can and does block some services on iOS without problem. sky's investment bought them a decent shareholding, NewsCorp an even bigger one and they are entitled to have a say and no legal battle would be successful. And even if they were streaming doesn't generate the income for Amazon for it to make sense to take on Sky, where as it impacts all of sky's business so they would throw the kitchen sink at it

Wakey, once again, where is the evidence?

I love your opinion, honestly, but opinion is not evidence.

Oh, Apple blocks certain services yes and no doubt Roku does. But what you are saying is that Sky have specifically paid Roku to keep Amazon off, without any form of evidence other than an opinion (which you are trying to present as fact). This is a very different story.

If this is just an hypothesis of yours, then fine, at least be honest about that.

If this is a working theory of yours, then you are bound to search for evidence (otherwise it is nothing more than an hypothesis)

If this is fact, please present the evidence.

It wasn't specifically to block Amazon. It was to buy a significant shareholding in the company which obviously gives them some say in company decisions. And Newcorp is an even bigger shareholder in Roku and they have an obvious interest in protecting sky's Interests

As for SkyGo on Xbox and PS4 these devices aren't included in your standard SkyGo service. They require additional payments to use. And multiroom does matter because
Its £11.25 extra per TV where as if they included it on the NowTV box you could spend a single £20 and add sky to two TV's or pay £5 a month to increase sky go to 4 devices and for a single £40 payment increase get it on 4 additional TV's. That's a fair bit of lost income

http://thenextweb.com/media/2013/05/...vice-to-11-9m/

And that's without NewsCorp investment during the funding rounds Sky invested which while they didn't announce how much their investments were is said to be much larger than Sky's

Again, no evidence. Sky has invested in Roku, yes, and so has NewsCorp, but where is the evidence it was Sky or even Roku that Amazon Prime is not on that platform. Please provide that evidence.

All you have done is posted evidence that one company has invested in another company, but that has nothing to do with one company blocking the other company. It could really just be Amazon that hasn't developed an app.

Without any form of evidence, the simplest and most logical assumption should be made.

1) Did Amazon just not make an app?

or

2) Did Amazon make an app, but secretly Sky has blocked Roku from adding the Amazon app, and Amazon have kept incredibly quiet about it instead of directly telling their customers that the reason they are not on Roku is because of an old boys network between their arch enemy "Sky" and the STB maker? Which would incidentally put them totally in the clear, and make people dislike Sky even more... which would bring more customers to Amazon and less from Sky who don't even have their Sky Go app on the Roku platform anyway, due to another conspiracy theory that they want to restrict people from accessing Sky in multiple rooms despite the fact that can easily be done just by restricting streams....

or

3) Lizard people have taken over the streaming industry and eaten all the Amazon app developers in the UK.


Actually. there are reports (post #10) that Sky Go contract-free users won't need to pay for the extra Sky Go Extra to access on consoles.

But that is again a moot point. It would be to Sky's benefit then to put Sky Go on the Roku, and require the Sky Go Extra sub which would make them more money.

They already have the basic app though from the US. Yes changes would need made but mainly on the data calls to account for slightly different ways of storing the data as the interface elements would the same. Even with testing its no more than a weeks work.

Amazon aren't a hardware company, they make no money on hardware so their money comes from having their services on as many devices going as long as its cost effective and when your talking about an app on one of the biggest streaming tv platforms where the same app can run on all current boxes for a weeks work to tweak it for not just the UK but all of Europe that's using the hybrid Lovefilm/PrimeVideoUS backend are they really going to turn that down. After all in the US Roku boxes account the majority of Amazons usuage followed by Browser, then iOS with Fire devices after that



Yes free to people who don't have sky already and pay either £15/32/35/40 a month depending on what channels they get access to. The none sport/movie pack at £15 is in no way worth it even through the browser where they get the full sky go package but as half the channels licences only allow it to be streaming through the browser and not via apps its certainly not worth it via any other device.

And its also free on consoles if you have multiroom but Multiroom costs £11.25 on top of your sky sub. So no it makes no sense whatsoever ever for sky to put it on Roku and if they did it would have to be only to those buying it with sky tv or who take multiroom in which case how many people would really need it on a 3rd tv (and in skygos awful quality as well) when they have it on two seperate boxes as part of the TV package + multiroom sub already?

"Amazon aren't a hardware company".... Well, predominantly they are an online store. But, they are still a hardware company Wakey, unless the Amazon Kindle, Amazon Fire Phone and Amazon Fire TV don't exist anymore.

Here is another hypothesis. Perhaps after investing a huge amount of money in creating their brand new television streaming set-top-box (described quite accurately as "hardware" by many), they are reluctant to launch on the Roku box right away while in the beginning of a new product launch, in the hope to draw more people to their Amazon Fire TV product? If they added Amazon Prime to the Roku box now, which would pretty much complete the line-up of apps on the Roku platform, where would the incentive be for people to buy an Amazon Fire TV? A box they have invested a lot of money in?

Let's just put that into perspective.... If Amazon added their app to the Roku platform now, it would make the competing STB probably the perfect box as it would contain ALL of the important on-demand and catch-up services.

If you were running Amazon right now, would you launch on the Roku box before or after a launch of your own STB pretty much killing any chance of customers being interested in your product? If so, you would not be very popular with your own investors.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people in the UK now with Prime membership, but no easy way to watch their content on the main TV. Buying an Amazon Fire TV now seems like a good option to them.

This is of course just a hypothesis. Amazon have not stated this to me or published this (as far as I know) in the press, so I am not saying that it is actually what is happening. (this thing called evidence which I tend to go on about), but you have to admit, it is no less as "logical" as your own hypothesis.

Let's all be honest here. You don't have evidence, and the chances are you won't find any. So why are we both wasting our time and boring other readers arguing about something neither of us can prove. You have your idea and opinion as to what is happening, and I have mine. So let's just leave it there.

If you do find evidence, by all means post that here, but by evidence I mean the real thing, where either Amazon or Sky have admitted this has happened, or some third party organization (i.e. press) has come up with documentation showing it to be true. If this happens, I will happily admit I was wrong, after all, knowing what is really happening and being wrong beforehand is far better than living up our own arses.


"Multiroom" is an old-school technique by old-school delivery methods such as Satellite and Cable to restrict and keep track of the amount of viewing options available. This was designed primarily to stop people from sharing expensive subscriptions.

Sky, being an old-school company that still thinks in the traditional ways in many regards, have been known to roll-down tried and tested techniques to newer concepts and ideas.

However, "Multi-room" which may still sound logical to Sky, has very little point in modern day streaming. Restrictions can far more easily be made simply by limiting the number of platforms in use, as well as networks. So, it makes no difference to how many platforms are supported, but instead, how many platforms a customer can use.

As for your point that Sky Go has no reason to go on Roku, actually it does. Remember, Sky Go can now be bought totally contract-free and without a traditional Satellite sub. This means the more platforms it supports, the more customers it can attract.

Sky know this, which is why they have announced expansions to television-connected devices such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One before the end of the year. If, as you say, there is no logic adding Roku support, why are they adding Xbox One and PS4 support?

Regarding video quality, yes, this is a major issue with Sky on mobile devices, but they will most likely offer at least 720p on new STBs. (Sky are not the only ones who offer lower quality on mobile devices... even Netflix do this).

But the big thing happening with Sky is that they are doing a whole lot of experimenting with their online delivery services. They know that the days of Satellite delivery are numbered, and they also know that restrictive contracts will also die out. What they don't know is which way they will eventually go, something like Sky Go, which is closer to their normal satellite subscriptions, or something like Now TV. Probably the biggest hinderence to Sky Go right now is the success of Now TV. It becomes far less attractive to invest more into Sky Go's expansion as Now TV takes away potential customers.

While I too was the first to point fingers at Sky re Amazon Instant Video not launching on the Roku, I've since come to the conclusion that it was Amazon's own doing in order to push FireTV. While they don't really make any money on their hardware, they have more control over the user experience if people are consuming content via their products and of course, regardless of whether they make money, they want their products to be successful and for people to buy them .. and what better way that to drive sales of FireTV boxes than to hold back Amazon Instant Video off other streaming boxes like the Roku. Certainly sounds plausible.

As for ITV. Looking at the Sky/ITV press release http://corporate.sky.com/investors/p..._launch_on_sky there is no mention of exclusivity which is something that they would normally shout about if that was the case. Hopefully Amazon will use its clout (something that Roku didn't have until Sky came along) to get all the main channels onboard.

@ovby most of your argument around the reasons why Amazon have chosen not to be on Roku full down when you realise it's been available in the States since day one.
Amazon and Sky clearly have a UK battle going on. Both either refusing the other on to their platforms or refusing to produce for them.

Actually, no.

When Roku came to the UK in Jan 2012 (which is quite a while ago in streaming terms), There was no Amazon Instant Video in the UK.

Instead, there was Lovefilm, which was only acquired by Amazon in 2011. At that time, Lovefilm used a completely different online delivery method, with totally different apps and was not compatible with the US version of Amazon Instant Video on Roku.

I would imagine, Lovefilm development went into slowdown until it completely merged with Amazon Prime - this is totally normal when a company like this merges or is taken over. If you remember Lovefilm in those days, the app it used on other platforms was totally different to the apps used by Amazon Instant Video.

When Roku landed in the UK, there was no initial investment by Sky, although this happened later in 2012. Still, Amazon & Lovefilm did not share the same apps.

It wasn't until Feb 2014 that Lovefilm fully became integrated into Amazon Prime, which is quite late in the journey. I would imagine that some time between the Roku arriving in the UK and Amazon Fire TV being launched in America (earlier this year), Amazon begun development of their new platform - it can take a couple of years for something entirely new like the Amazon Fire TV to launch after first conception.

And in this period there was plenty of time for Amazon to hold back on adding themselves to new platforms (which they have been holding back by the way, ever noticed Amazon Prime on Chromecast either and how long it took them to get on Android?)

So, we have the period between the beginning of 2012 and 2014 when there was no Amazon Prime UK, but Lovefilm which for most of that time didn't share the same app or online delivery as Amazon Instant Video, and during the later half of that period, Amazon began developing their own platform - and have slowed down on adding apps to new platforms.

So, although it is still just an hypothesis, it doesn't fall flat as you suggest.