Another telecoms company retrenches from broadcasting to focus on its core business.
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Ireland’s telecom operator Eir has confirmed its premium sports channel will close later this year.
The decision to close Eir Sport follows an in-depth review and mirrors a discussion currently taking place at the UK’s BT over the future of its own sports operations.
“The challenges of the last year have fundamentally changed the commercial model for sports broadcasters, with more sporting events moving to free-to-air and premium broadcasting rights becoming increasingly expensive,” Eir said in a statement.
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https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2021...ark-this-year/
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Originally Posted by jfman
Some will. However what isn’t clear is how many and their willingness to pay given Sky is sold as a bundle.
You’re making the false assumption everyone has unlimited disposable income.
As I’ve said before if it was that easy why hasn’t it happened before? ITV Digital, Setanta, ESPN UK (the first time) are all in the graveyard of potential Sky competitors. None lacked access to investment. What makes streamers exempt from the economics that failed these business models?
If it was that easy why would there not be a queue of streamers auction after auction causing the value of the rights to spiral out of control? At some point one of them has to fail because their predecessor had the perfect business model to bid the most yet still extract value for their shareholders. What makes you think that company isn’t Sky? After all - they are a streamer via Now TV. So there’s no new market to target.
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I buy into the argument about sport being more valuable to Sky than as a stand-alone product from another company as it generates a range of other services - broadband, entertainment package, mobile and possibly movies too. However, companies like ESPN and Setanta were previously just selling sports packages and Sky had a monopoly on a lot of film and entertainment content, even if it allowed VM to wholesale it.
However, two things are changing in the landscape.
1. Sport now has the option of being sold as an add-on to Disney +. In the future, the same may be the case for HBO+ and Eurosport. So an investment in Premier League rights flows through to more than just a tenner a month for a stand-alone sports channel, it flows through to an investment in a whole package.
2. There hasn't been a content provider that you can substitute for Sky. If you're serious about TV as VM is, you need to have Sky's channels. However, this is being chipped away with Disney taking back its content and Warner Discovery likely to follow suit. This therefore erodes Sky's unique position and Disney+ or HBO+ with a Premier League sports offering such a breadth and depth of content be a viable substitute for Sky.