Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/ne...s-pricing.html
"The ruling potentially means that Sky no longer has to provide Sky Sports 1 and 2 to platforms such as BT Vision and Top Up TV through an Ofcom-regulated price. The satellite broadcaster could also look to recoup its lost revenue from the price cut over the last two years."
"Sky could look to hike up its wholesale prices and make it no longer viable for BT to continue offering Sky Sports 1 and 2 to its customers."
"Sky can, however, refuse to supply if they are unhappy with the offer the platforms propose."
Both BT's and Virgins carriage deals with SKY for SKY Sports expire in the summer. SKY are reportedly hanging back from negotiating with Virgin until they see what deal is agreed between Virgin and BT for BT Sports. If SKY don't like what they see they will make it very difficult for BT and Virgin when negotiating a new carriadge deal for SKY Sports. Sounds very familiar to what has reportedly happened with SKY Atlantic so it looks like SKY will know exactly what they are doing.
There is a real possibility that SKY will be the only place to watch all SKY Sports and BT Sports channels. BT have already confirmed their channels will definitely be on the SKY platform in the summer, just not on a wholesale basis via SKY. So what is the risk for SKY by not having SKY Sports on Virgin and BT? Well at first a drop of viewing figures, a drop in revenue from advertisers and other TV platforms plus a hit in reputation. I suspect however SKY would quickly make up the shortfall. If SKY is the only place where you can get SKY Sports I'd imagine a significant jump in subscribers moving to SKY from other providers. Get these customers on TV, broadband and phone deals and within no time SKY are no longer making a loss.
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What makes you think that when only a handful of VM customers and BT customers take sky sports anyway?
---------- Post added at 21:26 ---------- Previous post was at 21:13 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad
SKY and BT agreed the deal for SKY Sports 1 & 2 on the 28th June 2010. For what I can gather, it was a 3 year carriage deal.
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No, the whoesale forced price is coming to an end. Sky are still required to supply Sky sports. If they massively inflated the price Ofcom would just regulate it again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad
The thing is none of SKY's current customers would probably care one bit if the channels are withdrawn, by hook or by crook, from BT and Virgin. SKY wouldn't care too much either as it would give them the chance to add a significant numbers of new subscribers at record sign up rates.
I seriously think we are about to see a bit of history repeating. In February 2007 Virgin Media launched which some suggested would shake the British pay TV market and become serious competition to SKY. Within weeks all SKY basic channels were withdrawn from the Virgin platform. This is viewed by many as SKY trying to stick the boot into Virgin right at their birth.
Within the next few months it looks like Liberty Global will enter the UK pay TV market by taking over Virgin whilst BT are set to launch a brand new TV service including BT Sports. I can see SKY repeating their "put the boot in at birth" exercise to both BT and Liberty Global but this time with SKY Sports. Just like in 2007 with Virgin, the mudslinging between BT and SKY has started in the press already.
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Where's the basis for these record rates you speak of? Not many bt or Virgin customers take sky sports. The people that are bothered are already with Sky and their tv uptake is stagnating.
Virgin was never going to be a true competitor to Sky tv, not with it's massive debts, Virgin Media rebrand was just a dodgy paint job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by passingbat
All the above is possible.
One thing I noticed when the Liberty takeover was announced, was that the head of Liberty specifically said that they had no intention of going into the Premium content acquisition market.
I think that may have been a message to Sky, that Liberty are leaving Sky's prime money making business alone, but the unsaid, but implied reciprocal requirement from Sky was that they would not try to withhold premium content from VM or that could change. I could be wrong and may have read into that something that wasn't there.
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They couldn't afford to if they wanted to. Both Liberty and Virgin are saddled with enormous debts. That's the reason they aren't going for premium rate content.