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More at:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/sky-ch...netflix-2016-7

There are discounts, I am constantly tortured to resubscribe with a 50% discount, even at 50% its still to expensive so not interested.

Sorry I haven't looked at the press release in detail yet. I had bloomberg on in the background earlier and I could swear they said churn was stable or even reduced over 12 months despite limiting discounts.

The numbers you post are not such a pretty sight, but I imagine 0.5% increase in churn would be more than made up for in increased ARPU managed by keeping a lid on discounts and price increases forced on everyone.

Two things-

1, I've seen no evidence of Sky "limiting discounts" with regards to Sky+HD, it seems it's just rhetoric from Sky.

2, Getting customers off the "legacy platform" as you call it won't be easy, not being able to have more than one SkyQ silver box, not owning your equipment, lack of deals/discounts will only add to Sky's battle to get people on SkyQ. I belive Sky's customers, including myself, are't stupid, if Sky don't change their approach they will struggle to gain SkyQ upgrades and SkyQ will still be a product that has a limited number of subscribers.

Sorry for your disappointment.


ARPU was flat at £47 (£45 11/12). Thus, it hasn't been rising in line with price increases and so could be being "dragged down" by the level of discounting.

It's not the easiest to guage, however, because of the ongoing changes in the "customer mix", where Sky have clearly been reaching out in to the "lower value/ pay-lite" consumer base, that they previously didn't crave.

It still baffles me why people who say they don't work for a company or own shares are so concerned that they offer a discount to others who have tried to obtain one.

I'm pretty sure that if Sky were to suddenly close down tomorrow the vast majority of subscribers wouldn't actually care that much. The football would quickly find a new home and all the HBO shows would snapped up very quickly.

I'd hate to see the legacy platform close and be replaced with such an overpriced alternative such as Sky Q.

Out of interest I wonder what Aurichie thinks about the fact I've just been given a free (old) Sky+HD box and intend to activate it with a Freesat from Sky card?

Sky told analysts in January 2007 that "they wanted to "weed out" those who were bluffing about cancellation to gain offers, and acknowledged that discussion on the internet had encouraged what they called "offer riders"."

Also, "they talked of moving towards more transparent pricing- their argument being that loyal customers would find it fairer, and that there were now a sufficient mix of services and price points to attract and retain customers, that they didn't need to do turnaround offers in the same way". (taken from posts I made on DS at the time)

However, they had ambitious subscriber-growth targets, as they sought to gain the type of lead/scale in the industry they have today, and thus this policy seemed short-lived. Then, digital-switchover & fibre broadband occurred and customers- often for the first time- found that they had genuine alternatives in their area.

Retention offers will always be driven by Sky's goals and how it affects the scale of their profitability. They have sufficient financial strength that they can choose to lose some customers who decline the full price. However, whilst their most loyal customers (good morning, aurichie ) find it difficult to imagine a life without Sky, I think that the evidence is that limiting discounts does increase churn, and that Sky therefore, do have a dependency on them to retain a proportion of profitable customers.

The key is the profit. If I leave, they lose money...if they retain me, they make some profit (as costs are for most part sunk). And i am one who has, and will, move if I get offered better deal elsewhere.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... Nowtv is the way to go as this is even discounted when you cancel, I get all the movies, entertainment and kids channels plus all the box sets on demand for £9.49 a month for 4 months. After 4 months I will cancel again and get a similar offer (most probably) and if not I will have a break from it or sign up with a different email to get a new offer. As for fluid viewing with Skyq? Nowtv gives you something very similar as you can watch on upto 4 devices from where you left off. The only thing you can't do is record but as most stuff is on demand I'm not missing it. I have a free sat pvr to record normal channels.
How much is sky cinema and the family pack on Sky even on a deal?

To be fair, the other posters were responding to a post about this years results, but the link in the post was from last years Guardian


Date of article - Wednesday 29 July 2015 07.54 BST

If you can live without UHD or FHD, and don't sit glued to Sky channels all day, then Now TV is definitely the way to go.

Even if you don't want to play games, you can just go to a local convenience store or petrol station and get cards offering 2 months of movies for £15 (instead of £20) so only if you're lazy and just pay monthly by card would you need to pay full price.

Frankly, why isn't Sky charging the same to broadcast movies via satellite?

I have been thinking about cancelling the movie channels and use Now tv. I bought the box for £13.99 last month with two months movie pass included. I have been testing it to see how it compares with the sky box. I watched half a of a film on Now tv and then the other half on Sky Cinema through the sky box. Apart from no DD sound there is not a huge difference in picture quality. If you are not bothered about HD and DD sound then now tv would be fine. I did cancel Sky Movies then they announced Sky Cinema and offered half price for six months. But it only seems to be big titles like Spectre and Everest that are getting this better picture and sound..

So I am thinking of buying the new Now box with freeview and cancel the movie channels and use Now tv for movies.

Apparently you can buy movies and entertainment passes from argos or pc world which are cheaper. A two month pass is £15 so thats £7.50 Pm instead of £18.

So may try this option and go for a cancellation deal if I can get one for the tv package.

I think you are spot on.

If Sky even took the route of stopping discounts completely for cancellations, you could go for all services of Netflix, Amazon and Full Nowtv package, then use freesat and on demand.

That would cost around £65.00 with no discounts and arguably offer more content than sky TV alone

Keep up with that until sky beg for you to come back.

You could get Sky TV with Family Pack and Movies for £56 a month, so £9 cheaper than your £65.

Apologies. Here's the correct link:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...ues-uk-ireland

Profits actually rose slightly more this year than in the previous 12 months!

Now TV for sports is a nightmare if you live in apartment and/or have noisy neighbours watching the same football matches as you.

Before I could get Sky Q, I used Now TV to get Sky Sports to my bedroom and upstairs office. The pictures are anything from 1 to 2 minutes behind the live feed on Sky. So you hear when a goal goes from your neighbours and get to see it about 90 seconds later on average.

Obviously for those who like to trade/gamble on sports it's a complete non-starter too. (I do)

£65.00 includes the monthly sports pass, so Sky without HD sports pack would be £74.00.



Of course, every service on offer doesn't benefit everybody for every single situation, I can only get freeview Lite in my area, so BT TV is pretty much out of the question unless i want to have restricted viewing.

The point is, that Sky have got themselves in Knots by charging an inflated standard price then allowing discounts but now the consumer has a much better bargaining power than before. If Sky wanted to call out the bluffers, you could just cancel completely and wait for the letter in the post for the large discount to return.

Sky has been silly to introduce the same discounting structure to NowTV. Amazon and Netflix have a simple stance. That's the price..... pay it or dont.

It will be interesting to see what happens later next year when the first Sky Q customers come to the end of their eighteen month contracts. On Sky Q the standard Sky HD downgrade options to a cheaper bundle no longer apply. If you have Sky Q it’s a minimum of £44 (probably £46 next year) excluding sports and movies. For customers who cancel at the end of their contract will Sky let them walk away and take the equipment back which would lose Sky monthly income of at least £44 and increase churn. Or will they be forced to offer discounts to those who do cancel. Its going to be a challenge for them once the contracts start ending.

I believe that while Sky Q will appeal to a section of subscribers who are happy to pay a high amount for the full package plus multiroom the majority of subscribers will prefer to remain on Sky HD where there is greater flexibility and lower pricing options. I am not interested in movies and sports and with so many alternatives now available £44 a month is just too much to pay for a package of additional channels and limited selection of boxsets. At the moment I am happy to pay £19 a month for the family bundle on a 50% retentions deal but I would never pay full price again for the family bundle.

I expect the success or not of UHD will be a big factor with Sky Q's retention and growth.

I've had Sky Q for three months now and couldn't imagine going back to Sky+HD and that's before UHD has even started (the main selling point for me).

Incidentally UHD is launching on Sky Germany with a UHD enabled Sky+ box, without all the additional Sky Q gizmos.

Absolute rubbish. The picture quality is perfect and certainly far better than the low resolution SD crap Sky charge a fortune for on satellite. Yes the picture is delayed by around 60 - 70 seconds but it's certainly not a problem.

You may wish to keep trashing the now TV service in the hope of scaring others away from it and on to the beloved Sky Q but many others have no issue. 720p is HD however 540 x 544i on satellite isn't even as good as the 50 year old PAL resolution!

The resolution on Sky Sports SD is awful and made even worse by the fact most of us have large TVs these days. One theory is they do this to get people of card sharing as HD can't be shared.

Yet they have the sheer cheek to call it a premium product and charge accordingly. I know why broadcasters use 3/4 resolution and on free channels that's fair enough, but to charge a starting price of £20 per month before quickly adding on the expensive premium channels is a down right rip off. All Sky channels apart from Pick, Challenge and News should be 720 x 576 or 702 x 576 for the price they change.

Though if they were then HD wouldn't look quite so good.

What is "absolute rubbish"? You've just agreed with the only point I was making about delayed pictures. I never mentioned picture quality.

The picture delay may not be a problem for you. But for those with noisy neighbours or living in flats and apartments it can be a very real problem. The situation I described is a real world one I've lived with.

HD pictures on the Sky platform are also slightly delayed. So I've had to watch SD sometimes because of outside noise cheering goals before I've seen them. The gap is only tiny there, but it's still annoying.

So why are you in this forum spouting your angry nonsense? There's an online entertainment forum for Now TV users on DS. It would be nice if those blinded by hatred for Sky would clear off and leave us alone.

Now TV is still Sky! And is it such a problem to hear cheers seconds before you see a goal?!

When analogue still existed, did you favour that over digital for the same reason?