Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

I am factoring the saving in however it’d be absolutely minuscule. Sky/Virgin pay third parties pennies per subscriber per month (my “savings”) based on the fact they deliver a combined 13 million households.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

Would you not be saving in the order of £60 on the Full House package? Netflix, Prime, Now TV and Starz does not come to that.

Make a true assessment and let us know what you think. Don't include sport, which s a different kettle of fish and a separate debate.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

I have given my true assessment of the situation at length already.

Saying to not include sport, or presumably telephone and broadband costs, is to skew the results.

I could hack my neighbours WiFi and just stream everything illegally costing £0. It’s equally as unviable by comparison.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

Broadband and calls to pay for too. So, whether the internet comes in via VM's cables, fibre service, 5G etc, it still has to be paid for. But, will everyone need to pay for all the main streamers every month?

If we take how CBS handled Star Trek Discovery with a new episode put out every week, that's a pain in the arse. If if all new shows are handled the same, it would be very expensive to gain access to all new content, but I am hoping that some streamers won't do that, especially Netflix.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

Well, I think it is important to separate sport because at present, too much is up in the air. Currently, most people seem to think that accessing sport is going to get a whole lot more expensive, but the opposite may hapen.

The position on dramas is more predictable, which is why I posed the question as I did.

I am not yet clear why you think that non-sport streaming will be more expensive when it is no longer necessary to factor in the existing pay-tv channels. You have not actually explained this.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

Perhaps a reminder as to why we have all these channels to begin with, and with most things, it stems from what happened in America in the 80's.

The media cos wanted to make as much money out of their shows as possible, hence the term syndication. So, by creating all the cable channels, it gave them places to put their older shows on. But as the channels started to grow in popularity, it cannibalised the viewing figures for the big networks, especially when new shows were put on the cable channels to keep interest in them.

As, I've said it before in other threads, I see all this as going full circle. Streaming services will now take the place of the multitude of cable/satellite channels and possibly leave a small core of broadcast channels left which may ultimately become stronger again.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

I can't see the scheduled broadcast channels surviving at all in the end, particularly as the non-advertising BBC is planning to go on demand in the decade following the next licence fee negotiations.

The commercial stations will not be able to survive the migration of their audience to streaming services. Tbere will not be sufficient advertising revenue to support them.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

I just worry that our media will be dominated by American tech giants who ultimately don't have out interests at heart.

Without turning this into a major discussion about the license fee, but if the BBC were privatised and ITV and Ch4 allowed to merge, then if we're lucky, we might just have two British broadcasters with enough weight and resources behind them to compete against the Americans. But with Netflix spending several billion dollars a year on content, it will be a hard task for anyone to catch them.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

I have.

The channels that provide third party content that Sky and Virgin deliver costs pennies per subscriber per month absorbed across a huge customer base.

Once that goes the money will come from multiple, smaller subscriber bases paying higher amounts. If you choose to take multiple services (to maintain an equivalent service to now) that’ll easily add up to more than XL TV.

The fact that Sky, BT and Virgin will be the major internet providers regardless, you’ll find them turning to there to drive profits.

To pluck a figure out of fresh air a bundle of channels getting 30p per subscriber per month from Sky/Virgin is looking at a figure of £46.8m per year hard cash. Plus will command advertising revenue.

To make that from a standalone at £5 a month you’d need 800 000 subscribers ignoring all your other costs - VAT, subscriber management, servers, bandwidth. The BARB figures don’t support that the existing third parties are likely to achieve that.

In reality I won’t save many 30 pences, but will be asked to pay multiple £5s (or higher) to maintain my current level of content.

Sky, Virgin and BT will still have shareholders to serve, so expect broadband prices to rise as well to cover their profits.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

Possibly, take a look here:

https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/ste...om-1202876000/

Pay tv and streaming services have roughly the same amount of subscribers at 15m each in Britain.

What that article shows is that while most of those streaming subscribers also have a pay tv service, a third of them have cancelled their premium pay tv service.

If Sky, BT and VM are allowed to bundle and integrate streamers into their pay tv services, that should offset the losses from the decline of channel bundles and keep costs down - hopefully!

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

Wow! I think that the likes of BT and Virgin Media will appreciate the better value that they will be able to offer by way of packaging streaming services.

I am not sure whether Sky will actually welcome it, but I think they get the drift.

I think that you are concentrating too heavily on downsides and not properly considering the upsides!

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

I wouldn't be optimistic that the market for streaming services will sustain a number of providers on top of those that are already there.

There has to come a maximum, and whether there's enough space for everyone to make profits at the level they currently do I'd say is questionable.

---------- Post added at 23:43 ---------- Previous post was at 23:37 ----------

I'm still yet to see the benefits.

People who can't afford a Now TV subscription might be able to buy a separate inferior service just to qualify as having pay-tv?

I'm 100% certain if I had to pay separate subscriptions to see the content I do now from Sky, Viacom, Disney, etc. There wouldn't be massive injections of cash into the market from people who don't currently subscribe to pay-tv. They'd all be fighting for the same small pot outside the existing subscriber bases.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

Er, let's look at this again!

Are you seriously suggesting that a subscription to Now TV is more expensive than to Sky satellite or Virgin Media?

I'm sorry, but I just do not understand your logic!

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

I don’t understand yours. And no, I clearly wasn’t saying that.

I’ll put it as simply as I can.

13 million people pay £24 into a pot, which gets unevenly distributed among third parties, after covering some platform and equipment costs. For that everyone gets almost everything.

TV companies decide they don’t like their share of the pot and so launch their own separate platforms at £6 each.

Now to achieve the previous total pot value they need 52 million individual subscriptions. I don’t believe that market exists unless some households take four (or more) subscriptions and this group will be worse off by paying the same (or more) for less content.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2018)
 

I guess it depends what model you use. One thing you cannot deny is, from the punter's point of view, if you cannot afford a Sky satellite subscription, Now TV will look quire attractive.

In the future, people will be able to subscribe to the streaming services they want. You can ignore the fact that people will see the attraction of that if you like, but you will be proved wrong.

Streaming is the future, like it or not.