Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Yet “terrestrial only” is on the up. Would be interesting to know the background to that.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

That makes no mention of the Simpsons being removed from Sky One, just alludes to possible picture problems should past seasons appear on Disney+

---------- Post added at 16:45 ---------- Previous post was at 16:42 ----------

As I'm sure you know Barb figures are estimates. The only people who know how many tv subscribers Sky has is Sky/Comcast themselves.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Terrestial only now also includes BTTV, You View and Talk Talk TV customers.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Phew. I was starting to worry it might be evidence of cord cutting!

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Now my maths is not that clever but those figures do tell me something.;)

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Immigration.

---------- Post added at 19:02 ---------- Previous post was at 19:00 ----------

Yes, that's it!

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Stealing all the good jobs you'd think they'd at least pay for subscription television.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

That's in regards to aspect ratio on older episodes of the Simpsons. No mention is made of removing new eps from Sky. And note the "maybe" even in regards to this issue.

Look, it may happen, but Disney like to make money (unlike Netflix at the moment..) and Sky is a guaranteed revenue stream for them, so I doubt they will mess with things too much.

Don't forget that if Disney and Comcast full out in the UK, then it will be bloodbath between them in the States and everywhere else too. I don't think at this point, they will risk that.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

This is the thing. If the market won't sustain dozens of streamers with millions of subscribers each, and I don't believe it will, suddenly £x per month per subscriber to join a wholesale deal or a fixed risk free fee for your content to go onto other platforms is massively appealing.

A deal with Sky and Virgin, for example, at £1 per month would be £150m a year relatively risk free. On the other hand, a fledgling streaming service at £7.99 a month would need 1.8 million subscribers to achieve this once VAT is taken off. Your content, and brands, are now in 12.5 million homes, instead of less than 1.8 million. Gaining more reputation for your content and thus increasing its back catalogue value in the future. You make a dead duck series on a streamer nobody has and it's gone forever.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

It is in regards to the aspect ratio of older episodes on the streaming service.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

But people don't have to subscribe to all those steamers every month. It will likely be a pick and mix situation. As for what's appealing, in the States anyway, people are still cutting the cord and going down the streaming route, so customer action in favour of the streamers is driving the direction this will all go.

Lets go back to the beginning of all this and why all these media companies are joining up with each in the first place and that's because of the existential threat to their business' from the tech giants, especially Netflix.

At the moment it appears that all the Big 5 (as they are now) Hollywood players are going down the DTC route while maintaining their existing relationships with all the various broadcasters over the world. Super RTL being a example in Germany where Disney did a deal with RTL and sold their rights to them, but I don't see how such arrangements are sustainable in the long term in parallel with DTC services.

I would expect (hope) that common sense would win through in the end and that the Hollywood media cos and platforms like VM, BT and Sky can reach an accommodation where the platforms take a cut of the various streaming services and integrate the streamers into their own UIs along with keeping a smaller collection of linear channels.

But I'm sure Disney and all the others have thought very hard about the sort of problem you raise and at least as far as Warner's go, they are not going to risk the revenue from Sky's 22 million customer base in favour of their own streamer (for now) and we'll see what happens with Disney and the others in the coming months.

What's not risk free for Hollywood and hence the catch 22 situation here, is to allow Netflix to continually dominate in the streaming world, but personally I think its too late. Netflix is so far ahead, even the likes of Disney will never catch them now.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

If people don’t subscribe to every streamer each month, which I reasonably accept, then it still adds to the precarious nature of the limited revenue in the £8-10 a month market.

If you’ve one headline series and people subscribe, binge it, dabble in a few other series here and there and cancel until next year it’s a lot of £8s you are going to need in that month to make up the business model.

It’s equally a strength of Sky/Virgin who do have the subscribers month in/month out and fairly stable revenue streams.

I do accept your point that the major studios all want to be Netflix, have that customer base (ideally without the debt) and also agree it’s too late. Netflix have first mover advantage and while their debt situation is a problem that’s just bad news for the existing shareholders. The subscriber base will always have vultures circling. I don’t think there’s space in the UK market for two Netflixs, let alone dozens.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

But there won't be dozens, there aren't dozens now, not out of the big film/tv streamers. There will be a top tier of three or four "must have" streamers that most people will pay for and then a lower tier of "optional" streamers that people may pay for sometimes.

I'm pretty sure Disney and Netflix will in that top tier, it's just a case of seeing who will join them at the top table.

As Disney has already said that the price of Disney+ is only introductory, I would expect all the streamers to raise their prices in "true" pay tv fashion eventuality. As you yourself have said, the new streaming world doesn't automatically mean everything will be cheaper, it could get a lot pricier.

On your second paragraph, this is why Netflix has had to spend so heavily, to create a programming library from scratch. Disney et all have the inherent advantage in that they don't need to create a new series every five minutes due to the enormous archives they posses. Even if films/tv shows are 30 years old, they will be "new" to someone and some things (like people) age better than others.

And as we've seen in the States, guaranteeing "some" revenues is the reason some platforms and content companies have come together and I expect that process to continue.

As for space in the UK market, depends what the market looks like. Possibly the licence fee may not be compulsory soon, so that would be a game changer... and I've already expressed a view in other threads about how I see the platforms changing in the future, ie by merging.

I do think there is space in the market for two Netflix's, in fact at least three or four, but not three or four big streamers AND a pay tv package AND paying for the licence fee too.

Which is why I still believe the bulk of the pay tv channels will disappear over the next ten years and the streamers will in effect take their place with Sky/VM/BT bundling them as they do with channels now.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

You need to add AVOD options to your equation, jfman.