[jfman]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Well, that doesn’t really help, jfman. Where is this alternative content of which you speak? The only half-decent channel we don’t have now is Sky Atlantic. And even that channel won’t have HBO content for much longer. I can’t see that contract being renewed soon, can you?

There’s plenty English language television OB.

Discovery don’t have a monopoly on documentaries, Disney don’t have a monopoly on cartoons or regurgitated comic book fantasy films. General entertainment is ten a penny from a range of potential content providers on both sides of the pond.

Sky is now in the fortunate position of having been taken over by Comcast, which will certainly help them. Maybe Liberty Global should think about taking over one of these American content providers and also to start commissioning original content of its own to help fill the gap.

Or they could just buy content from Sky?

Not many of us have unlimited disposable income, I agree, and they certainly wouldn’t want to waste it by paying out for fewer, lower quality channels.

I couldn’t have put it better myself - why would anyone want to pigeon hole the content they see to that of one or two streaming services at £5/10 a month when you can get the depth and breadth of content from Sky or Virgin.

There are many Virgin subscribers who are not fussed at all about sport, so I’d hardly call general entertainment a minority interest.

Minority interest channels scoring 0.1-1.0 are everywhere on the BARB ratings getting pennies in the pound wholesale. They all sound pretty interchangeable to me. Discovery Shed? Or will I just YouTube some DIY videos for half an hour to waste my day away?

I stick by my previous assertions that the streamers are much better value for money for non-sports content. The streamers are not requiring you to enter into a contract lasting more than a month, and so you can swap between them if money is a problem. You don’t need to subscribe to them all at once. And the quality and volume of content is far better than any TV channel can offer, or even all of them put together.

I agree that if you are a generalist sports watcher, streaming can be very expensive, but those who are interested in only one sport (eg football) can find savings by not subscribing off-season.

Streamers may be better value in a narrow subset of circumstances. However for the vast majority of “general entertainment” viewers they are simply spreading out the content and driving up costs.

Very few sports fans are interested in “one sport” and one only.