[Horizon]

Originally Posted by jfman

The thing is for a cable co, unless it gains ownership of the content (at production level) rather than a distributor, then it is far more profitable for them to be the pipe and leave everyone else in a bidding war.

The best thing to happen to Virgin was BT/Sky in a bidding war for Premiership rights. The squeeze on broadband/line rental ended, allowing Virgin to raise their prices in line with the rest of the market. Yes, in turn Virgin have a wholesale deal with BT, but it will be small beer when you think line rental and broadband have creeped up for the entire customer base.

All true, but the pipes are still a means to a end.

People don't want fast broadband because they need 200mb connection for email, they need it for gaming and services such as what the streamers offer.

Originally Posted by muppetman11

I've just been looking at the shows on Netflix and there's a fair amount of content even some labelled as Netflix Originals that are either NBC Universal , Disney or Fox shows.

With these companies expanding their distribution footprints I can see these kind of things ending.

NBC Universal for instance can easily distribute it's shows in Europe using Sky after takeover and with a OTT service can look even further afield thus not needing Netflix.

With spoken about this in the linear/streaming threads, but with hundreds of channels AND streaming apps, something has to give at some point.

With Disney withdrawing their new content from Netflix in America next year, that's the first salvo fired with the likely conclusion that media companies will only have their own content on their own apps in the future.

It's why Netflix is spending billions on original content now while it can, as it knows it will eventually lose all third party content at some point in the future.

Originally Posted by jfman

Are shows popular because they are on Netflix, or is Netflix popular because of the content they have?

If it’s popularity is that it is a low price alternative to mainstream pay-tv then the answer is to push its own content through Now TV.

Sky is launching its full IPTV service next year, or was, but perhaps in the end as I believe Comcast will use the Sky name for its own streaming service, Sky will ultimately morph from a satellite tv company to Comcast's global streaming app and it may well look far more like Now Tv than the planned full IPTV service.

As to your popularity question, no doubt its probably a bit of both. But as Netflix has become mainstream, clearly its more than just the brand that attracts people. They have awful stuff, but they also have some really great things too and a lot easier to find than flicking through hundreds of channels.

---------- Post added at 22:47 ---------- Previous post was at 22:40 ----------

Originally Posted by pip08456

It's certainly not crazy.

VM is the only cable company in the UK, it's main profits come from internet provision with Pay TV as secondary with the majority of that revenue made up of reselling SKY channels.

Comcast is a cable company who now owns SKY so their best bet moving forward is a merge or takeover of VM.

Originally Posted by jfman

Virgin and Sky in the UK are only part of wider operations.

By that logic would Comcast/Liberty seek to merge their operations all over Europe? Is that a serious prospect that regulators will entertain? Highly doubtful in my view, although I do accept the point that in the UK market at least (from the consumer point of view) Virgin/Sky essentially offer the same service at similar prices and the “competition” doesn’t do anything to keep prices down.

Final ponder from me tonight on a possible future Comcast/VM relationship.

Rather than going down the merger route, could Comcast simply do a deal with VM to pump Comcast's services down VM's cables? Or, and more likely, they do a deal to allow Comcast access to VM's ducts??

Comcast is cable tv/broadband company to its core. I highly doubt they will spend billions more now building their own UK cable network, which means using someone else's infrastructure. And there's only two choices, continue to piggyback off BT's poles or do a deal with VM.

And to the earlier reply about Liberty Global and Comcast coming together, I think it is very possible, might even throw Vodafone into the mix too.

Lots more media mergers to come, I believe.