Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
So how come Virgin Media XL customers were given BT Sport at no extra cost? Sky would only be letting Sky Sports customers get it free under the assumed arrangement.
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Virgin Media customers are much less likely to take Sky premium channels, let alone any standalone channels over and above that. I think we can universally accept at standalone price Sky Sports represents better value than BT Sports.
So if Virgin offer BT Sports to say, 1.8 million TV XL customers, maybe only a couple of hundred thousand of them would have actually paid the full price anyway.
200 000 * £30 * 12 = £72m.
Virgin on the other hand could offer £5 per XL subscriber and that's £108m, plus advertising revenue but I'll accept that's negligible.
Sky customers are far more likely to take Sky Premiums, and in turn more likely to pay for additional standalone channels. Or, not being Virgin customers are more likely to take BT broadband plus Sky TV. It's Sky customers (and BT customers) where BT are far more likely to recoup their investment.
So unless Sky wants to stump up through price rises BT aren't going to cover their costs. Under your proposal they are going to give it away to approx six million households who are most likely to pay for it anyway.
There is no magic money tree as they say.