"Sky has cut the purchase price of its flagship Sky+ HD box from £150 to £49 with immediate effect............"



http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitalt...ky-hd-box.html

Unfortunately it wasn't the cost of the box that made me choose freesat over sky hd, it was the cost of the subscriptions, and they only ever go up.

And with the inevitable 12 month contract tie in (at £27 minimum) then the box actually costs at least £373. That said, if you are prepared to cancel after 12 months then its not much more than a freesat+ box so it is a tempting offer, but my $ky days are over.

I bet they're really worried...NOT.

Sky results to 31 December 2008

Sky has announced its results to 31 December 2008. Very strong results which appear to have beaten forecasts.

Highlights:

Total customers up 171,000 in the quarter to 9,238,000

Sky+ up 515,000 in the quarter to 4,650,000

Multiroom up 68,000 in the quarter to 1,723,000

Sky+HD up 188,000 in the quarter to 779,000

Broadband up 163,000 in the quarter to 1,955,000

Telephone up 139,000 in the quarter to 1,500,000

Annualised Churn - 9.9% (10.9% in prior quarter)

Average annual revenue per customer - £444 (£430 in prior quarter)

Most significant growth is Sky+HD, up 32% in just one quarter. Sky+HD set-top box price reduced to £49 from 28 January 2009 and 1,000 jobs created to support growth.

Number of customers with Sky+ (including HD) is now over 50% of customer base.

Not to mention, sky are going to release something big in the first quarter. Thats wot we got told during our assesments. Very hush hush at the moment. They arnt taking on 2000 engineers for nothing.

Sorry to keep this way off topic thread alive but does anyone else find these Sky figures odd?

For a few years now I haven't personally heard of a single person who has taken up Sky but am aware of a steady stream giving it up. And yet every time the figures come out they claim to have a massive rise in customers. Also, if the churn is around 10% then they must lose around 250k customers a quarter so the actual number of customers signing up (or re-signing) must be 421k (171k new customers plus 250k to make up for the churn).

I'm sure Sky aren't lying about the figures because as a publically quoted company that would constitute a serious fraud but it's hard to make any sense of them.
Last edited by Tern : 28-01-2009 at 11:27

no your right they are in a hurry to get those people tied to there system, but the thing is i was one of those people who would take up the odd deal now and again but this thing of asking for rent to use the record option when not with sky . i would rather pay more for the box and have full use, so its freesat for me . and you can keep sticking out all the numbers you like but i know i will not be the only one

It's called spin................HM Government are always at it, as well ......... through the Office for National Statistics

I just realised that if you cancel after 12 months then you will lose the record functionality so you have to keep paying and the cost of the box will eventually run into many hundreds of pounds.

So not a tempting offer after all. My faith in $ky is restored

How many Sky subscribers pay this each year and still spend the vast majority of their time watching the FTA channels?

.

This seems to be why so many people are cancelling now. I'm still scratching my head as to where all these new signups they keep claiming are coming from.


Edit: This is a very interesting graph.

Sky can give the box away for free and I still wouldn't want one. The problem for me is I cannot justify the cost even though I could afford the cost.

If they didn't have the £10 a month HD charge then I may have been interested but now it's too late. My Hummy Freesat+ is all I ever wanted.

At least I can sleep at night knowing I have no monthly bills and that my money is no longer paying footballers £100,000 per week or whatever it is these days.

Could it be once theres a dish on your property you are and will always be a sky customer I stopped my subscription over 4 years ago but still get the come back letter sky say its not from them but other outside sales teams I am not even on there data base supposedly
Could the new subscriptions just be people moving and having a new installation or Dish

Theres plenty of ways to fiddle figures.

People going from Sky to FSFS can still be counted as customers.

Sky can offer cheap deals and of course these are new customers, but how many stay after the cheap deal is over.

Sky say the customers are going up.

That graph says their viewing figures are dropping like a stone.

Someone is lying unless there loads of people buying sky and simply not watching it.

The real issue with sky plus & HD is that firstly you must pay for the + features if you don't subscribe to a sky package. second, with HD, you only get HD on the channels you subscribe to, so to get FULL value for the HD sub, you need to subscribe to the entire package. If you have an HD box but don't subscribe to any sky package, you have the FTA channels and virtually no recording ability or EPG. Sky is a total closed shop, and bearing in mind the cost but lack of real functionality, it's a very poor choice over Freesat, which is only going to get better. The freesat HDR will also get iPlayer and possibly other on demand functionality. I could go on. In simple terms, freesat wins hands down.

Nick

Sky's figures show how many people are paying to use the Sky platform. They will probably include those who have purchased "Pay Once Watch Forever", at least in the initial "free" period before being cancelled. The viewing figures are probably only for Sky owned channels. There are many channels that are part of the Sky subscription that Sky don't own. The figures may, however, suggest that fewer people are watching the premium channels (Sports and Movies), or that the same number are watching them less often. These people are likely to reduce the level of subscription in the current economic climate, and are prime candidates for dropping Sky altogether in favour of Freeview or freesat.

Isn't the graph just for BskyB's own channels? If so the amount of new launches over the period would dilute the adience to their own channels.

Well, obviously! Otherwise what would the graph be a percentage of.

The scale says "share of total viewing" how ambiguous is that?

Not at all, I'd say.

Of all programmes watched, those originated by Sky account for the specified percentages.

Not true. The HD Mix will give you all the non-premium HD channels regardless of what mix you subscribe to.

You can if you want subscribe to one mix (£16.50) and the HD Mix (£9.75) and you'll receive all the 'basic' HD channels.

You will of course get the Sky+ functionality included.

It doesnt say a lot for skys own channels then.

Id have thought the sports would have been the #1 watched channels along with Sky 1 and the movie channels.

I stand corrected, though it still does mean you pay for channels you can't watch if you get my meaning. My point is if you pay £10.00 per month for HD you should get ALL HD channels. At least on Freesat it's all free (Except for the license fee, but that's for another day.

Nick

That's a very good point- I'm sure FSFS and the Dixons £75 deal customers are counted, but I know a lot of people (including me) who got the £75 deal just so to have a cheap installation with a view to getting a Freesat HD box later, so a lot of these 'Sky' figures may miraculously transform into Freesat figures.

Also even if you totally cancel your SKY Sub, your SKY HD box will still allow you to watch all the Free to air HD channels and the 100s of free to air SD channels.

"Broadcaster BSkyB said it was creating 1,000 new jobs"

You don't do this unless things are going fairly well......