Originally Posted by OLD BOY

As MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a note to clients this week, cable providers are coming around to the idea that it’s OK to lose TV subscribers as long as they keep paying for internet access.

Originally Posted by muppetman11 (Post 36002918)

I record off the linear channels so it’s simple to zip through ad breaks.

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 36002944)

"As some of the posts on here show" - sorry Old Boy I think what you mean to say is that the BARB figures show, and report, that millions of people sit down and watch TV as scheduled in addition to catch up, streaming and time shifting.

You have made one quite interesting point here, I supposed like the broken clock everyone has their moments.



Let's think, why would operators of hybrid-fibre coax networks want people to use more data. Price rises!

Once the speeds that households need push through 24Mb ADSL2+ and 80Mb FTTC limits cable operators are ideally positioned to price their broadband products against FTTP offerings which will cost (on average) thousands per home just to put the infrastructure in place. Indeed, Openreach have a wholesale price of £80 per month for 1Gbps. Virgin's 350Mb standalone has a standard price of £55, so expect 500Mb and 1Gbps to be similar and higher respectively once launched.

Cable operators around the world are positioned to deploy technologies to millions of homes that can reach these speeds at a fraction of the cost on their existing networks and hike their prices to match the rest of the market.

FTTP is unlikely to be regulated in the same way as copper lines and the amount of genuine competition available to each consumer will likely be virtually non-existent for years to come (this brings me back to oligopoly but I know people get bored of economics).



Now let's break down your package - I'm guessing you got the offer price of £99? The Rt. Hon. Phillip Hammond MP is straight onto a wedge there. :)

So you've got a SIM, and not owning their own network there's a chunk of money to our good friends at BT already. The unlimited SIM retails at £27, but who knows what goes to BT. Will we call it a tenner? Higher? Lower?

Sky Sports and Sky Movies will obviously be contentiously priced. It's not in the public domain, but when relations were slightly worse between Sky and the cable operators they actually insisted they had to sell these channels at a loss on cable! Now if you don't have the top bundle (or a predecessor) Virgin charge an astonishing £58.75 for Sports and Movies HD. Wow. That's a lot. The undiscounted price on Sky is £49, but it goes on offer at £34. There's really no way of knowing what chunk of your subscription goes on this - but it'll be sizeable. More than a score? Higher? Lower?

Sky's basic channels, of the famous dispute fame, and all the other third parties on the platform are onto a chunk. £3 a month? £5? Pennies per channel, of course, but with hundreds of channels pennies add up!

We're back to our good friends BT once again as BT Sport has a reasonably lucrative, but undisclosed, deal for all it's channels to be included in TV XL or whatever they call it these days. Way back in the dim and distant past Setanta reportedly got a similar deal at £2.50 a month, and they weren't fronting up the thick end of £2bn every three years for football. BT, on it's own platform, charges over £15 a month. I think it's fair to say Virgin's wholesale deal is probably at least double Setanta's given the financial commitment BT is making in sports rights.

So, would Virgin prefer to sell you broadband at £55 a month you need but can't get anywhere else, or a discounted ultimate oomph package at £99 and hand out all this money to third parties and to a great extent rely upon them to sell their overall package?

Originally Posted by muppetman11 (Post 36004567)

What reduced content from the US ?

The broadcasters are still currently selling all their shows to the channels/services bidding the most.

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 36004568)

Old Boy doesn't do facts, he just offers opinion that drops into his head as reality if he can get a couple of similar Google hits.

He's also not interested in why the largest operators of hybrid fibre coax networks in the world might be indifferent to the rise of streaming he's only interested in what he pays.

I suppose seeing things as "macro" level hasn't been his thing throughout.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 36004593)

Eye on the ball, muppetman. :walk:

---------- Post added at 20:46 ---------- Previous post was at 20:44 ----------



Rude. Wrong. :sniper:

Originally Posted by muppetman11 (Post 36004617)

My eyes are always on the ball , US content is still being made available to UK channels so not sure what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 36004691)

Like the sunrise inevitably a regular occurrence is Old Boy trotting out more opinion pieces of the exact same discredited opinions. C'est la vie.

Originally Posted by muppetman11 (Post 36004696)

And yet I have a hard drive full of US Shows Old Boy go figure.

Originally Posted by pip08456 (Post 36004702)

So have I muppetman but not from any cable or satallite company. Go figure!

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 36004684)

While a certain amount of content is likely to be available, a great deal will by-pass the pay tv companies and go straight to the streamers. You can already see how this is beginning to impact Netflix, as it is forced to give up its Disney content, for example. Sky is likely to lose at least some of the contracts it has with the film studios, and as existing contracts expire, there will be no content left to replace the shows that have to be given up.

The stepping up of Sky's commissioning of double its original content would not have come about if it could still rely on good US shows being available for screening on their platform. It is also why the likes of Virgin Media,, Sky and BT will all be aiming at being super-aggregators of content in the future.

The attached article supports my view, but of course there are others as well if you look for them.

https://www.capitalgroup.com/pcs/lat...ng-shifts.html

Content providers are beginning to offer services directly to consumers.

The most dramatic development has come from content providers. In moves that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, they are starting to bypass cable and satellite companies in favor of selling directly to consumers over the Internet. HBO, for example, garnered significant attention with its rollout of a stand-alone streaming service. Showtime, another premium channel, plans a similar initiative. CBS has begun offering a streaming service made up of current and past programs. These types of offerings can lure customers who don’t subscribe to cable. More importantly, the new services establish a foothold in the digital marketplace that can be leveraged as on-demand grows in popularity.

Originally Posted by Horizon (Post 36004714)

The CBS/Viacom remerger is expected to be announced next week, so we should get a combined streamer from them at some point over the next year or so.

On Disney's removal of content, was that ever confirmed for the UK Netflix service? I can't seem to find any announcement about that. Even in the States, due to existing contracts, some Disney material will remain on Netflix US into 2021.

Although I largely agree with OB's views, I do think we need to add the caveat that we don't know whether the Hollywood media cos will withhold content from Sky/Virgin/Netflix UK etc yet. I think the signs are obvious, but we need to wait and see what actually happens.

We know what's going to happen in the States, or at least some idea, as there have been several announcements, but as contracts with global broadcasters don't expire until the mid 2020s in some cases, we may not feel the pain, yet, that will be felt in the States.