.................but not record any of them.



.

You wouldn't make a city trader!

Recession - people stop going out and do things like rent DVDs, buy takeaway pizzas, subscribe to Sky - all because it's cheaper. Stock rises.

Depression - people have so little money that they don't rent DVDs, don't buy take away pizzas, cancel Sky - Stock falls.

We are in stage 1 (recession) at the moment.

Stage 2 (depression) will start sometime in 2010/11 and last for years.

Sell Sky stock in the middle of this year!
Last edited by MarioLanza : 29-01-2009 at 00:10

My Brother has just subscribed to Sky as he got a HD telly (Samsung 42" 6 series - beautiful telly - the red one!).

He's got Sky HD+ in two room, Sky+ in two other rooms, Sky feed to 4 rooms in total!. Sports and movies on the main feed.

He won't tell me how much he is paying but it must be an enormous amount! He will certainly be bringing the average up.

As he has not subscribed to Sky before I'm convinced he'll mainly watch BBC and ITV!

He's never been interested in sports before and hasn't been to the cinema for 20 years.

That is all very interesting.

However, in their statement to the City they have said that the average income per customer is about £440. They cannot lie about this (well they can but they'd be in trouble if they did).

So, even if they included FSFS as customers, the average should include them. This would mean that the average per proper Sky subscriber would be even higher than £440!

EDIT: I would imagine that this figure includes advertising revenue and not just subscriptions.
Last edited by MarioLanza : 29-01-2009 at 00:51

IMO there is no competition between Sky and Freesat.

As a consumer, you either want Pay TV or Free TV.

Freesat was only ever (officially) devised as an alternative to Freeview for those who will not be able to get Freeview after DSO.

Many Freesat fans have hyped it up as some sort of Sky killer. It is no such thing.

If you want live sport or recent movies you are going to have to subscribe to Sky / Virgin or Sentana (and to a lesser degree TopupTV).

If, like me, you're not that bothered then Freeview or Freesat are suitable.

I have both Freeview and Freesat (Freesat is only used for CNN, Bloomberg and the odd BBC HD program). On Freeview I record all sorts of programs but never get to see many of them. They get deleted to make way for new stuff. So, I suppose I'm not a big telly watcher who can justify the Sky subscription.

Don't forget, Sky News, Sky 3 and the Sky Sports News channel are on Freeview and this is in about 10 million homes I believe. They could be adding these figures into their totals.

Sky sports and Sky movies are premium channels.

As they are so expensive they are bound to have fewer viewers.

Sky figures are high as:

They offer telephone and broadband which save you money. And they offer the leading choice in HD channels in the UK.

Not to mention access to every pay channel and FTA channel in the UK. Half my viewing is between FTA and pay channels. I enjoy Sky HD and excellent broadband.

Freesat is good if you want free tv.

Sky's best strategic move in the last 5 years was to get into broadband IMO. If people go for the minimum package they will stay there (unless finances prevent this) due to apathy and, they may subscribe to more profitable packages in the future.

I'm with TalkTalk and get a combined telephone and broadband package for about £22 per month (no TV or IPTV - which I'm not interested in due to the BBC's iPlayer).

In this package I can call any 01 and 02 number in the UK at any time of the day for free. I can also call 36 foreign countries for free also (shame I don't know anyone abroad in these countries!).

Given that we all have to pay £10 for BT's line rental this means I get free calls and broadband (I average a speed of 3.5M with a cap of 40G) for about £12. I can't see anyone beating this.

For me to move, someone is going to have to give one heck of a deal.

This is where Sky are being very clever - package deals. At the end of the day, if you can call who you want (evening and weekends only - sadly), use the Web and watch what you want on TV you are not going to go through the hastle of changing to, for example, Virgin Media, to save a few quid. Very clever of Sky for their long term prosperity.

When we sat down and analysed it... the highest percentage of our viewing was the traditional five channels that we need no subscription for. Yes there is the occasional footie game.. and the 'Dexter' series on FX but it just did not warrant the new price of £57 a month.

It's no surprise that I am now on Freesat and I do have to say the humax's functionality and functions is way above the sky HD box.

But also offer the only things worth watching.

If I ever got sky, it would be when they go with a sports only package without the need to subscribe to all the other crap I would never watch.

I agree with you.

That's why I stopped subscribing to Sky many years ago.

Apart from the big 5, I only watched about 5 other channels occasionally but had to pay for all the crud.

They are not stupid people (????). They must have calculated that they earn more money with packages than with a per channel subscription service.

I might be in the minority, but I refuse to pay for a package but, I would probably pay £5-8 pcm for Bloomberg on its own.

Totally agree.

It's really interesting watching these debates, because even those of us who are instinctively anti-Sky get swept up in the euphoria of a price cut - "wait a minute... £49 for HD? 31 channels?!!" It takes some time before the true costs are revealed. And if that goes for us on this forum, you can bet it goes 100 times for the ordinary punter on the street. So combine that with the Broadband handcuffs, and you get an economic success story to buck the trend.

MarioLanza's comments of a recession vs depression are interesting - I'm inclined to agree. The trouble for freesat is that they too will suffer in a depression. Buying now is depression-proof, as it won't cost you anything at all to run when it really hits the fan... but freesat can hardly have this as the basis of an ad campaign!

no you do it, to get your units in to peoples houses, so it can be a sign that things are not well or that they fear things could go bad

It's hard to see how you can possibly justify that when there are people posting here who have cancelled Sky because of what they can get on Freesat (and Freeview, I don't doubt). Surely that satisfies any criteria for two things to be in competition? People choose Freesat/Freeview and Sky lose income as a result.

There are certainly far too many people who have Sky and seem to think that the 'top package' is the only choice available. £57 a month gets you pretty much everything, whereas if you were more selective - e.g. just the entertainment pack and the basic HD chanels - then that's just £27 a month.

FSFS viewers can't be counted as customers, because they're not paying anything.

How many customers stay after the cheap deal is over? The churn figure indicates at least 90% do.

Viewing figures aren't "dropping like a stone" and that doesn't mean that the number of customers isn't going up, either. That Wikipedia chart shows SHARE of viewing over FOURTEEN YEARS. Big shock - back then everything was analogue, there were hardly any channels, and most of them were run by Sky. In 2009, there are, what, six or seven hundred channels. Of course Sky will have a smaller share of viewing as time goes on - a smaller share of a bigger market.

Threads like these are amazing. Yeah, Sky must really be "feeling the heat", what with more customers and more profit than ever before. I bet they're scared witless!

Have you looked lately?

Bloomberg is free, and has been for at least a year now.

Bloomberg has been free for years! And didn't it just join Freesat today, also?

mate no offence but who are you kiddng, i have just got rid of my sky plus box the reason i am not anti sky but when they ask you to rent the box just to use the record option thats just not on i liked to take up the odd deal but the idea that when i could not i could not use the box to record the free channels really got me. so i have freesat and sky have lost someone who was a customer

You could be on to something there - my Mother-in-law has had three sets of callers in the past week trying to get them to join Sky

They pay for the card which has to be changed once in a while. They are sky customers. They can easily be fudged into the figures.

I think Sky have got something up there sleeve.

Jobbing the SkyHD boxes out must mean theres another box around the corner.

How can they fight FreeSat? A new box maybe ?

So they moved into Broadband....

What does BTvision offer?
What does Virgin offer?

Video on Demand ? IPTV ?

Hmmmm... I wonder where sky are going? Who's gonna want a 'normal' HD box when they can get an IPTV enabled HD box ?

Just a thought

Well, I am for one! The whole point of a PVR is that it means you don't need to rely on what the TV companies choose to make available for later downloading. You are self contained.

Of course if anyone did something really radical, such as allowing you to buy single programmes or series for a reasonable amount and deliver them over IP that might be useful. The only trouble for Sky with that scenario is that is is absolutely contrary to their entire marketing philosophy which is to force people to buy things they don't want in order to get what they do.

It may be remembered also there was a long wait of a few weeks to get HD boxes installed just before Christmas as posted here by quite a few at the time. Sky are doing well despite many here would would be over the moon to see them fail. There were many who forecasted their downfall when digital terrestrial started, it never happened

It amuses me to see people who post "I have dumped Sky", who cares, do they post to say they cancelled their gym membership?