Sky to be more selective with sports rights strategy

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mlt11

08-12-2016

Thought it was worth coming back to the original point of the thread - ie Darroch's comment that:

"Sport is very important, obviously football is very important, but relatively, every day it is less important than it was ................."

And of course that followed on from reports of falling viewing figures for the PL in the early weeks of the season.

Well we've now got four complete months of BARB data so I thought it would be worth looking at the overall viewing shares of both Sky Sports and BT Sport and how they compare to the same months last year.

The advantage of looking at overall viewing shares is they give the overall picture - whereas there will always be fluctuations from week to week and for individual games which might be put down to all sorts of reasons.

It also addresses points like the relegation of big teams from the PL - those teams are now in the FL - the audience for which will obviously be reflected in the overall viewing shares. Ditto the Ryder Cup - whilst it may have affected PL audiences, the audience for the Ryder Cup itself will again obviously be reflected within the overall viewing shares.

To avoid this post becoming too long I'll put the data in a separate post below.

mlt11

08-12-2016

Right, so here's the data for the overall monthly viewing shares (as a % of total TV viewing) for Sky Sports and BT Sport for August 2016 to November 2016.

Just one point - I have only included premium channels - so SS Mix, SS News and BTS Showcase are excluded. It was also important to exclude SS Mix as it didn't exist in 2015 and I wanted the analysis to be precisely like for like.

Sky Sports:
Aug 2016 - 1.89% (Aug 2015 - 2.46%) CHANGE = Down 23.2%
Sep 2016 - 2.10% (Sep 2015 - 2.11%) CHANGE = Down 0.5%
Oct 2016 - 2.10% (Oct 2015 - 1.79%) CHANGE = Up 17.3%
Nov 2016 - 1.72% (Nov 2015 - 1.77%) CHANGE = Down 2.8%

BT Sport:
Aug 2016 - 0.43% (Aug 2015 - 0.52%) CHANGE = Down 17.3%
Sep 2016 - 0.63% (Sep 2015 - 0.44%) CHANGE = Up 43.2%
Oct 2016 - 0.57% (Oct 2015 - 0.52%) CHANGE = Up 9.6%
Nov 2016 - 0.67% (Nov 2015 - 0.56%) CHANGE = Up 19.6%

Observations:
- For both broadcasters, August was substantially down but also completely out of line with all other months. It therefore seems reasonable that it should be regarded as a bit of a one-off, attributable to the effect of the Olympics.

- For the months of September to November, the Sky Sports figures are variable - down, but only very slightly, in two months but up by a much greater amount in the other month. Oct 2015 was much lower than Sep 2015 whereas Oct 2016 was identical to Sep 2016. In terms of content, Sep 2016 benefitted from the Ryder Cup but suffered from the loss of US Open tennis.

- For the months of September to November, the BT Sport figures are up in all three months. Whilst the degree of increase varies, it has to be considered overall to be substantial.

Conclusions:
Sky Sports - variable - no conclusive trend in either direction compared to the prior year.
BT Sport - clear, substantial upward trend compared to the prior year.

I'll attempt to update this in future months. December will be quite an interesting month as BTS1 has a very strong comparative due to Bank Holiday PL football which has moved to Sky this season - so will be hard for BT to register another increase in December - though of course we'll have to wait and see.

CELT1987

08-12-2016

Originally Posted by mlt11:
“Right, so here's the data for the overall monthly viewing shares (as a % of total TV viewing) for Sky Sports and BT Sport for August 2016 to November 2016.

Just one point - I have only included premium channels - so SS Mix, SS News and BTS Showcase are excluded. It was also important to exclude SS Mix as it didn't exist in 2015 and I wanted the analysis to be precisely like for like.

Sky Sports:
Aug 2016 - 1.89% (Aug 2015 - 2.46%) CHANGE = Down 23.2%
Sep 2016 - 2.10% (Sep 2015 - 2.11%) CHANGE = Down 0.5%
Oct 2016 - 2.10% (Oct 2015 - 1.79%) CHANGE = Up 17.3%
Nov 2016 - 1.72% (Nov 2015 - 1.77%) CHANGE = Down 2.8%

BT Sport:
Aug 2016 - 0.43% (Aug 2015 - 0.52%) CHANGE = Down 17.3%
Sep 2016 - 0.63% (Sep 2015 - 0.44%) CHANGE = Up 43.2%
Oct 2016 - 0.57% (Oct 2015 - 0.52%) CHANGE = Up 9.6%
Nov 2016 - 0.67% (Nov 2015 - 0.56%) CHANGE = Up 19.6%

Observations:
- For both broadcasters, August was substantially down but also completely out of line with all other months. It therefore seems reasonable that it should be regarded as a bit of a one-off, attributable to the effect of the Olympics.

- For the months of September to November, the Sky Sports figures are variable - down, but only very slightly, in two months but up by a much greater amount in the other month. Oct 2015 was much lower than Sep 2015 whereas Oct 2016 was identical to Sep 2016. In terms of content, Sep 2016 benefitted from the Ryder Cup but suffered from the loss of US Open tennis.

- For the months of September to November, the BT Sport figures are up in all three months. Whilst the degree of increase varies, it has to be considered overall to be substantial.

Conclusions:
Sky Sports - variable - no conclusive trend in either direction compared to the prior year.
BT Sport - clear, substantial upward trend compared to the prior year.

I'll attempt to update this in future months. December will be quite an interesting month as BTS1 has a very strong comparative due to Bank Holiday PL football which has moved to Sky this season - so will be hard for BT to register another increase in December - though of course we'll have to wait and see.”

Xmas ratings should be higher as more people on holiday and more likely to watch.

DUHO

08-12-2016

Originally Posted by popeye13:
“I don't disagree in that respect. They do want it their own way and they've had it as such for decades. As someone else has pointed out on here: Sky beat off ITV Digital, Setanta and had ESPN play the bitch, they got it their own way where as with BT, they are able to beat Sky with the stick and in brutal fashion and they don't know what to do.
BT got them paying stupid stupid money for PL rights and its cost them massively in other area's too.”

I am talking about the broader picture though. Telephone line rental etc......SKY complain about BTs position in the telephone market but BT are unable to do the same

samburrows

09-12-2016

Originally Posted by CELT1987:
“Xmas ratings should be higher as more people on holiday and more likely to watch.”

When compared to last Christmas?!

brundlebud

09-12-2016

Originally Posted by mlt11:
“Right, so here's the data for the overall monthly viewing shares (as a % of total TV viewing) for Sky Sports and BT Sport for August 2016 to November 2016.
”

And so, all the hoohah a couple of months ago about viewing figures being massively down was essentially the result of a very small sample and it is in fact pretty much rubbish.

JSemple3

09-12-2016

Sky sign a new 5 year deal to show 20 GAA matches a season to 2021

http://www.skysports.com/gaa/gaelic-...hes-per-season

David_Flett1

09-12-2016

Originally Posted by mlt11:
“Thought it was worth coming back to the original point of the thread - ie Darroch's comment that:

Quote:
“"Sport is very important, obviously football is very important, but relatively, every day it is less important than it was ................."”

In a previous post and indeed several posts over the last year or so I have raised the issue that SKY have to deal with growing competition to their entertainment side and that they will have to reflect what they are able to spend on sport moving forward. I have mentioned that HBO may be a concern as the current deal costing just £275 million over 5 years is very cheap but surely won't be the case next time round. I was challenged that it would not make financial sense for HBO to launch a stand alone service in the UK but I countered that with the same argument was put forward in the US but in just over two years we have seen huge changes in the media landscape with almost all of the major studios launching stand alone services that allow people to cherry pick what they want.

Yesterday Disney launched the Disney Life app on Amazon Fire TV in the UK which will give people access to popular shows and movies now for just £4.99 a month. £9.99 may have made people consider very carefully but £4,99 is a very attractive price point and will more people choose Now TV, Disney, Netflix and Amazon and save money on the family bundle on the satellite platform? Of course the option to opt in and out of each service and watch your favourite shows then switch back and forth will save even more money. It is also heavily rumored that Disney may buy Netflix next year which would make them the largest streaming service in the world and present a very attractive service for many.

I think the threat to SKY is much stonger than many think and that they may not be able to spend such huge sums on one contract such as the EPL as entertainment now becomes a very important factor and there surely is no way that SKY can renew the HBO contract for so little. Adding a broader and better mobile offering also means that they will have another fully fledged revenue stream and may be used in the same way as BT do to retain and attract broadband and phone customers countering what others have said that broadband and phone is secondary to the TV operation.

The strategy for SKY must surely be to consider all options and take very seriously the threat of either losing or paying much more for entertainment and retaining TV subscribers and therefore I'm just not sure that the Premier League can count on securing any increase or indeed the same as what the current EPL contract offers next time round.
”

.....

rob1973

19-12-2016

So now it's been approved by the board at Sky....

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