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Sky Not Doing Deals Anymore?


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Old 04-05-2016, 09:47
howard h
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At the end of the day it's Sky's business decision. I don't agree with it, I think it's unfair on those who pay an ever-increasing full price, but ultimately Sky have clearly decided they will take whatever they can get from those who are playing the cancel game every year for the time being.

It's a complex balancing act for sure and I don't pretend to have all the data that presumably led them down this new path. But my gut instinct is they are devaluing the brand, and they are worrying about a customer exodus that is never going to happen due to all the rights they have locked up. I'm sure Sky saw some terrifying emerging trend out of big data analytics that after 3 months disconnected customers were far more likely to refuse to take up a new deal when finally offered, and so it was better to keep people connected to Sky with a deal before cancellation.

I'm more interested in what the move to leased equipment means about future plans. What I think it means is those who want to keep getting huge discounts every year will not be able to make their move to the future with Sky Q. That we're going to see a two-tier service where people who want 50% off each year won't receive Sky Q and have to stay on the legacy platform. Eventually UHD should tempt many more people over to pay full price I think, but we haven't even started broadcasting in UHD yet.
Nailed. In. One.
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Old 04-05-2016, 09:47
daleski75
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At the end of the day it's Sky's business decision. I don't agree with it, I think it's unfair on those who pay an ever-increasing full price, but ultimately Sky have clearly decided they will take whatever they can get from those who are playing the cancel game every year for the time being.

It's a complex balancing act for sure and I don't pretend to have all the data that presumably led them down this new path. But my gut instinct is they are devaluing the brand, and they are worrying about a customer exodus that is never going to happen due to all the rights they have locked up. I'm sure Sky saw some terrifying emerging trend out of big data analytics that after 3 months disconnected customers were far more likely to refuse to take up a new deal when finally offered, and so it was better to keep people connected to Sky with a deal before cancellation.

I'm more interested in what the move to leased equipment means about future plans. What I think it means is those who want to keep getting huge discounts every year will not be able to make their move to the future with Sky Q. That we're going to see a two-tier service where people who want 50% off each year won't receive Sky Q and have to stay on the legacy platform. Eventually UHD should tempt many more people over to pay full price I think, but we haven't even started broadcasting in UHD yet.
Sky have already dropped the smart features fee which can be read as a discount of sorts and if the sales of Sky Q do not meet their internal targets year on year then discounts will more than likely follow but I believe they won't be as large as the discounts offered on Sky HD.
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Old 04-05-2016, 09:48
Keith_Rigby1
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Just goes to show how poor FTA actually is then, thankfully FTA isn't the only option and we have choice, and that doesn't have to be just Sky.
Thats a strange comment to make when most of what i watched when i did have sky the sports a family pack, was FTA BBC1 BBC4, BBC2, they have some great drama and comedy peter kay( ech) and yet people think because they subscribe to sky, the FTA Channels carry nothing worth watching, when in fact, more people watch FTA programs than they watch sky, just look numbers that watched the masters golf on BBC2 last month 3.6 million compaird to sky 500,000. so the FTA is alive and well, and its free.
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Old 04-05-2016, 09:54
mred2000
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He's a fully fledged convert to the Church of Murdoch, huh? Suspected as much...
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Old 04-05-2016, 09:55
rscott
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Fluid Viewing is a very nice marketing term for something other providers already offer for their streamed content. Sky Q's the first to offer it on recorded content though (useful for people with poor broadband like me!).

Sky+HD isn't a dead platform though - there's still a lot of development planned for it over the next few years. It'll be getting some new features before Q (for a while, anyway, while Q development focuses on UHD, network stability and some of the other niggles like audio dropouts, HDMI-CEC, etc).

I'm wondering if, eventually, Sky will reduce the discounts on offer and freeze (or even drop slightly) the pricing of Sky+HD. Would make more sense in many ways and wouldn't have much impact on their total revenue.
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Old 04-05-2016, 10:01
daleski75
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Fluid Viewing is a very nice marketing term for something other providers already offer for their streamed content. Sky Q's the first to offer it on recorded content though (useful for people with poor broadband like me!).

Sky+HD isn't a dead platform though - there's still a lot of development planned for it over the next few years. It'll be getting some new features before Q (for a while, anyway, while Q development focuses on UHD, network stability and some of the other niggles like audio dropouts, HDMI-CEC, etc).

I'm wondering if, eventually, Sky will reduce the discounts on offer and freeze (or even drop slightly) the pricing of Sky+HD. Would make more sense in many ways and wouldn't have much impact on their total revenue.
Sky have to be careful though if they drop the price of Sky HD the price gap between that and Sky Q gets even greater which makes it seem even more expensive to migrate across.
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Old 04-05-2016, 10:26
retrodj
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If SKY can offer some of the main channels on Now TV at a fraction of the cost, then why can't they offer subscribers the option to pick and choose which channels they want... I was offered 50% off for 12 months and £50 credit without a contract near the end of April. I just went on to the chat option on the website to see what they could offer as Prior to this I was offered 60% off for a year and £100 credit, and I stupidly never took it. I asked them to call me back the following day so that I could discuss it with my other half. They never did call back.. I never took the 50% deal as I felt, for the same price per month i could have movies and entertainment on Now TV.

If SKY can continue to offer discounts and credits like this, then why can't they just reduce their prices overall? Surely then more people might think about subscribing.
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Old 04-05-2016, 10:36
mred2000
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Sky Q's the first to offer it on recorded content though (useful for people with poor broadband like me!).
They're not. They're just the first to offer it on an easily accessible/closed retail platform.

This kind of thing has been available for years to those who used computers to record TV and Satellite feeds (via a TV card and aerial/satellite) or download content (easily done at even low BB speeds) and then used one of a myriad of media players to watch them.

Heck, it was even available as standard as part on Windows 7, with Windows Media Centre, which would even allow cross platform 'fluid viewing' with the Xbox 360 and, come to think of it, that's an easily accessible retail platform so... Sky weren't first at all. With any of it.

If anything, they just made a more consumer friendly, dumbed down, solution. Maybe.
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Old 04-05-2016, 10:50
Keith_Rigby1
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At the end of the day it's Sky's business decision. I don't agree with it, I think it's unfair on those who pay an ever-increasing full price, but ultimately Sky have clearly decided they will take whatever they can get from those who are playing the cancel game every year for the time being.

It's a complex balancing act for sure and I don't pretend to have all the data that presumably led them down this new path. But my gut instinct is they are devaluing the brand, and they are worrying about a customer exodus that is never going to happen due to all the rights they have locked up. I'm sure Sky saw some terrifying emerging trend out of big data analytics that after 3 months disconnected customers were far more likely to refuse to take up a new deal when finally offered, and so it was better to keep people connected to Sky with a deal before cancellation.

I'm more interested in what the move to leased equipment means about future plans. What I think it means is those who want to keep getting huge discounts every year will not be able to make their move to the future with Sky Q. That we're going to see a two-tier service where people who want 50% off each year won't receive Sky Q and have to stay on the legacy platform. Eventually UHD should tempt many more people over to pay full price I think, but we haven't even started broadcasting in UHD yet.
Do you work for sky, i have never seen a guy that is just so in love with a company. you must counting the days down till UHD comes along.
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Old 04-05-2016, 11:32
Vertigo1
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I still don't have a problem with people negotiating themselves a better deal.

It's the now widespread abuse of threatening to cancel every year knowing they'll get a big discount without ever losing the service. There are big threads all over the Internet of people engaging in this practice. I don't think people should be able to get away with doing this every year repeatedly. In the past, you would be cut off after threatening to cancel a second year in a row. And you'd have to wait many months for an offer in the post to come back to Sky for a small discount.
It's standard practice with many large companies and no different to the insurers who send out automatic renewals at inflated prices, knowing that many people will be lazy and just renew, when a quick phone call will get you a much lower price.

We have the same with the utility companies who lure you in with a good fixed price deal for a year or two, then when that ends you lapse onto their "standard" tariff which is massively more expensive and you have to look for a new deal to get the price down again.

The problem is the sheer number of companies now using tricks like this. It's becoming a serious pain in the neck as, every year, you're forced to find new deals on gas & electricity, argue with Sky/VM about your broadband/phone/TV package cost, shop around for a new deal on car/home/goldfish insurance etc etc etc. It's just a total PITA which we can all do without.
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Old 04-05-2016, 11:48
dearmrman
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Thats a strange comment to make when most of what i watched when i did have sky the sports a family pack, was FTA BBC1 BBC4, BBC2, they have some great drama and comedy peter kay( ech) and yet people think because they subscribe to sky, the FTA Channels carry nothing worth watching, when in fact, more people watch FTA programs than they watch sky, just look numbers that watched the masters golf on BBC2 last month 3.6 million compaird to sky 500,000. so the FTA is alive and well, and its free.
No they don't, they just want more choice...and that can be through Sky, Now Tv, VM, Netflix etc....for me though I am opposite to you as I rarely watch any of the FTA channels, but as I say thankfully we have choice and no one is forced into anything...FTA isn't free you still have to pay a TVL, forced subscription if you like as the majority of it funds the BBC.
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Old 04-05-2016, 11:54
jonmorris
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In the past, you would be cut off after threatening to cancel a second year in a row.
Sky would surely do anything to stop you going, and certainly wouldn't cut anyone off.

Now I assume you are simply meaning they'll let you go ahead and cancel, but the way it's written suggests that if you try too hard to haggle they'll punish you by cutting your service - and that's obviously not true.

It would seem that if you go ahead and cancel, you could be without service for less than 24 hours before being given an offer - which you could then accept and be back watching almost straight away.

As such, why shouldn't everyone go through this game every year? When I got my first discount, the lady gave me the date my discount would end and told me what day to put in my calendar to phone up to try and get it extended (before I would be billed for the higher price). So, even Sky seems to encourage those who want a good deal to continue doing so.

In fact, they would appear to have two tiers of customer. Those that just pay up and accept every price increase, and those who are more savvy and need to be given a deal to get them to stay.

Frankly, those who just pay month in, month out, are mugs. Sure, they are entitled to continue doing so for an easy life, just as they are to keep with their energy provider and keep renewing the house/car insurance without ever searching around.
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Old 04-05-2016, 12:02
jonmorris
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But my gut instinct is they are devaluing the brand, and they are worrying about a customer exodus that is never going to happen due to all the rights they have locked up.

I'm more interested in what the move to leased equipment means about future plans. What I think it means is those who want to keep getting huge discounts every year will not be able to make their move to the future with Sky Q. That we're going to see a two-tier service where people who want 50% off each year won't receive Sky Q and have to stay on the legacy platform. Eventually UHD should tempt many more people over to pay full price I think, but we haven't even started broadcasting in UHD yet.
Do Sky have that many rights these days? Game of Thrones and the football. Okay, I'm being a little disingenuous there, but in reality it's not just a case of choosing to pay nothing (Freeview etc) or going with Sky for the great American shows anymore. It's still pretty much true for sport, hence the huge cost for it (and why it is expensive even on Now TV).

You have plenty of TV shows now being produced on Netflix and Amazon, and people are now watching in large numbers. We don't know exactly how many because neither will give figures, but the fact that shows get renewed and there's more homegrown content suggests it's not bad. Plus you can see on social media, and seeing what other friends and family watch, that Sky doesn't have it all its own way now for TV or film.

As for Sky Q, well clearly Sky can in theory play hardball and come collect the equipment if you don't wish to stay - but I am not sure how useful it is to recover equipment, refurbish it and send it out to someone else. I actually think we'll find that Sky will continue to do deals, and will let people keep the kit so they can reconnect very easily.

What Sky can do is play around with discounts, by suggesting there's a rental cost to the box which can be waived, and therefore giving the impression that the customer is saving money where they wouldn't have previously been expected to pay anything at all anyway.

It's all a bit of a game at the end of the day. Sky is after all a company that nobody NEEDS to be with. As such, the customer has the upper hand. Some customers choose not to play, which is fine - but they can't be upset when they see others do.
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Old 04-05-2016, 12:06
howard h
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Do you work for sky, i have never seen a guy that is just so in love with a company. you must counting the days down till UHD comes along.
In a previous post he said "we" when discussing Sky so I think that answers the question!

Meanwhile, isn't UHD already here? Youtube's 4k list is growing, albeit slowly; but when I gets my new 4k camera I'll be uploading some stuff - copyright free, ad-free (I hope as I'll be ticking the boxes) and, er, free
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Old 04-05-2016, 12:35
Zeropoint1
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I still don't understand how Sky + HD or the standard boxes are a legacy service. There's absolutely no chance that Sky are going to suddenly ingnore 10 million subscribers and downgrade their service or make it unattractive enough to force everybody onto Sky Q.

Perhaps Sky employees are requested to talk up Sky Q on social media and forums. Repeat something enough and eventually people start to believe it.
I'm sure searching for Sky + HD may bring up this threads and those not in the know may see it referred to as legacy and then go for the new shiny, more expensive version.
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Old 04-05-2016, 12:43
jonmorris
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Sky must want to migrate people to Sky Q. It does offer a chance for Sky to get more people to migrate to Sky broadband, and also to make money from supplying new boxes (or, likewise, enticing people by waiving the install/box fees and making it seem like customers are saving a fortune).

The pricing seems to encourage you to take more packages, as the costs are loaded at the low end (for the equipment) so you may as well pay that extra £nn for more channels (if not, why have such an advanced system).

Clearly the competition now offers enough that Sky got worried. First it decided to launch Now TV, and now an all-new setup that looks more slick, which is such a stark contrast to when people argued against clever features on the normal Sky EPG because it would be too confusing.

I remember the arguments on threads here from people who said consumers wouldn't be able to understand things like undeleting programmes! How the box had to be super simple etc.

Of course the likes of Apple then came along and showed how with good UI design, you can actually make things simple AND powerful. And that's exactly what the competition has been doing, so now Sky has caught up.

But despite all that, Sky will NOT be doing anything to lose existing customers. The mere fact that the current boxes are getting new features shows this.

I also expect that in the future when sales slow down a bit following the early adopter rush, Sky will perhaps begin to offer Sky Q to users seeking to leave, rather than just offering discounts. Or a combination of the two.
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Old 04-05-2016, 13:00
rscott
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They're not. They're just the first to offer it on an easily accessible/closed retail platform.

This kind of thing has been available for years to those who used computers to record TV and Satellite feeds (via a TV card and aerial/satellite) or download content (easily done at even low BB speeds) and then used one of a myriad of media players to watch them.

Heck, it was even available as standard as part on Windows 7, with Windows Media Centre, which would even allow cross platform 'fluid viewing' with the Xbox 360 and, come to think of it, that's an easily accessible retail platform so... Sky weren't first at all. With any of it.

If anything, they just made a more consumer friendly, dumbed down, solution. Maybe.
Ok - it has been possible in the past (I used MythTV for many years to do something similar), but only with FTA channels..
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Old 04-05-2016, 13:16
Vertigo1
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I still don't understand how Sky + HD or the standard boxes are a legacy service. There's absolutely no chance that Sky are going to suddenly ingnore 10 million subscribers and downgrade their service or make it unattractive enough to force everybody onto Sky Q.
What, like when HD first arrived and they started reducing the bitrate on some of the SD channels to make HD look that much better?

Sky Q is a very new service which co-exists with Sky+ HD but, over the next 6-12 months, they'll be pushing Q hard as their ultimate aim will be to completely replace the old +HD service, just as Sky Digital replaced analogue.
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Old 04-05-2016, 13:20
Young Turks
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If you are willing to lose sky and/or wait then there are very good deals and yours is the best I have seen so far.

And so much for Sky clamping down on discounts hey Aurichie!!
Nahh his offer is good but not the best one. I have not seen any offer that beats mine yet

I have been reading skyforums to digital spy or money saving experts you name it but to date my offer has not been beaten yet unless I have missed it!

But again, on and off, I have been with Sky since their analogue days so it is actually clear they do reward loyal customers just one needs to ask.

The longer you are with sky the better deals you get.

Long live Sky and many thanks for probably the best offer out there that I have. I bet only sky employees can beat my offer as they pay nothing
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Old 04-05-2016, 13:27
Vertigo1
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What is take the p**s at the moment is this new customer off of a free 32" TV, Samsung tablet or £100.

It's running again for what is at least the third time. They keep saying "only X days left" with a big countdown clock on the website yet, each time it finishes, 24-48 hours later it's back on again.

This is the kind of crap that shouldn't be allowed. Just as retailers can't advertise something at X% off unless they can show it's been on sale at the original, higher price for a given length of time, Sky shouldn't be able to entice customers by making them panic into a decision, thinking they only have a limited time, when in reality that's nonsense.
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Old 04-05-2016, 13:30
Zeropoint1
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What, like when HD first arrived and they started reducing the bitrate on some of the SD channels to make HD look that much better?

Sky Q is a very new service which co-exists with Sky+ HD but, over the next 6-12 months, they'll be pushing Q hard as their ultimate aim will be to completely replace the old +HD service, just as Sky Digital replaced analogue.
It does amaze me that such a gracious company as Sky would even think of crippling one service to make another look better. I love the way certain posters here can't see that offering channels such as Sky 1, Atlantic, Living and even Movies at sub SD resolution but still demanding a premium price for it. And as for Sky News, I've seen better looking videos on YouTube (in 2008)

I always think it's funny to be told Now TV only has 720p yet the satellite service can't even offer 576i for three times the price.
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Old 04-05-2016, 13:42
Keith_Rigby1
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No they don't, they just want more choice...and that can be through Sky, Now Tv, VM, Netflix etc....for me though I am opposite to you as I rarely watch any of the FTA channels, but as I say thankfully we have choice and no one is forced into anything...FTA isn't free you still have to pay a TVL, forced subscription if you like as the majority of it funds the BBC.
Yes i agree with you on the the point of netflix, i subscribe to them, and its nice to have the choice, want i dont agree with is the way sky bundle their packs together, lots of rubbish that the majority of subscribers wont ever look at, yet you have to pay for it, in a couple of years time the way sky do their packs will be old hat, and people will find alternative ways of watching their sports, movies ech, without getting lumberd with 100s of channels of rubbish, As for the BBC £145 year, comparid to Sky minimum cost £480 a year.
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Old 04-05-2016, 13:49
Keith_Rigby1
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In a previous post he said "we" when discussing Sky so I think that answers the question!

Meanwhile, isn't UHD already here? Youtube's 4k list is growing, albeit slowly; but when I gets my new 4k camera I'll be uploading some stuff - copyright free, ad-free (I hope as I'll be ticking the boxes) and, er, free
Dont mention UHD for free on D/S, But nice to know your going to be getting it for free,
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Old 04-05-2016, 13:51
jonmorris
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I think eventually there won't be many people enticed by the prospect of having 200-300 channels, so I am not even sure those broadcasters will continue to exist. Most of the content on these lesser channels will wind up on the on demand services, where it's better suited anyway.

Do we need channels showing back to back shows like Storage Wars, or Friends, or whatever? This is precisely what on demand is for. Do we need a channel showing a soap from the 1980s episode by episode each day, as against it being exclusively on demand?

I can see that more channels will close of their own accord in the future, and Sky will be in less of a position to come up with bundles. Only movies and sport will remain as things Sky can charge for, and only for as long as it gets all the rights it needs.
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Old 04-05-2016, 14:06
Deacon1972
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Yes i agree with you on the the point of netflix, i subscribe to them, and its nice to have the choice, want i dont agree with is the way sky bundle their packs together, lots of rubbish that the majority of subscribers wont ever look at, yet you have to pay for it, in a couple of years time the way sky do their packs will be old hat, and people will find alternative ways of watching their sports, movies ech, without getting lumberd with 100s of channels of rubbish, As for the BBC £145 year, comparid to Sky minimum cost £480 a year.
The 100's of channels you refer too are the fta channels, though bundled in each pack, it's only the encrypted channels you technically pay for......

At last look it was about 30 in the Original bundle, 65 in the Variety and 65 plus HD variants for the Family bundle.

Sky minimum is £240 a year.
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