General : Sky Sports & Movies price increases

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by passingbat

Thanks MM, but I still don't understand why you haven't included the price of unlimited phone calls in the total as it is a side by side comparison.

I haven't looked recently, but it used to be £5, so that would make the total £123.25. That's a lot more than VM's VIP.

Indeed you are correct , one package that's cheaper for one won't be for another , I've always swapped and changed however wouldn't consider VM at the moment personally the TV side is just to underwhelming for me , I enjoy Sky Atlantic , Sky 3D all my sport in HD and an excellent selection of smaller/niche channels like I say personal preference , we have no need for fibre BB so maybe thats how Sky stacks up better for us.

I like my VMTV there is enough channels for me,and with sky only able to offer 1mb broadband in my area i prefer to stick with VM for the moment.

But i was just having a think my Sky sports was £20.50 then last year there was a £2 price rise on that to £22.50 then this year a £3.25 rise to £25.75,i make that around 25% increase in just over a yearwhich in my mind is ridiculous,when sky are able to offer faster BB speeds in my area i just might consider them.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Indeed you are correct , one package that's cheaper for one won't be for another , I've always swapped and changed however wouldn't consider VM at the moment personally the TV side is just to underwhelming for me , I enjoy Sky Atlantic , Sky 3D all my sport in HD and an excellent selection of smaller/niche channels like I say personal preference , we have no need for fibre BB so maybe thats how Sky stacks up better for us.

I completely agree with you, but someone started a top package comparison, so just responding to that.

To me the lack of Sky Atlantic on VM is a massive downside, and VM should try to resolve it. Personally, I think Now TV will be the best option to get Atlantic for VM users. I just hope that when they add the entertainment content, Atlantic is a separate option at a reasonable price. Although I want HD, it doesn't upset me too much if a channel is only in SD, especially considering that VM now have a lot of Free HD channels.

It will be interesting when Sky add sports to now TV; can't wait to see how they pitch their pricing

[Chad]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Indeed you are correct , one package that's cheaper for one won't be for another , I've always swapped and changed however wouldn't consider VM at the moment personally the TV side is just to underwhelming for me , I enjoy Sky Atlantic , Sky 3D all my sport in HD and an excellent selection of smaller/niche channels like I say personal preference , we have no need for fibre BB so maybe thats how Sky stacks up better for me.

As SKY continue to close the gap on catch up and on demand content Virgins 3 main unique selling points will be:

1) ESPN for free on XL
2) TiVo
3) Super fast broadband

ESPN is only a great selling point to sports fans who take XL. With BT launching their football channel who knows what the future of ESPN on Virgin will be.

TiVo has only been adopted by a 1/4 of Virgins customers so far and looks like the future for Virgin. SKY have the finances and resources to sit back just now and watch how the PVR's of Virgin and Youview take off. They can then at anytime throw their might and muscle behind launching their own answer to the "next generation" of PVR's. As we all know by now, SKY like to do things bigger and better.

Super fast broadband is overated. Most homes don't need more than a 20mb connection. I can't think of a time when I will legally max out my current 120mb connection meaning others in my house can't go online at the same time.

As a Virgin customer I'm happy with my current services but will be watching closely during the last 8 months of my current contract to see what their future plans are. Adding 8 or 10 HD channels just won't cut it. I'm looking for Virgin to offer:

1) A dedicated 3D channel of their own
2) All missing HD channels that are not owned by SKY
3) More on demand content
4) More catch up content
5) Live TV content on the move
6) 100 more TiVo apps
7) More innovation
8) Access to Premier Sports
9) Add as many missing SD channels as possible
10) Add SKY Atlantic in either SD, HD or both
11) Fix all bugs and other know problems with TiVo
12) Fix TiVo so it records 'recommended movies' automatically

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by Chad

As we all know by now, SKY like to do things bigger and better.

You say that, and I know what you mean. But I remember being frustrated at Sky having a PVR and Telewest not having one. But Telewest brought out a better one with a larger hard drive and three tuners. Now VM have Tivo, which trounces the Sky HD box.

VM had a lot of on demand content and catch up services a long time before Sky.

Sky are currently beating VM on the ipad app, but the suggestions are that the delay on the VM ipad app is to bring things like streaming to it. And VM should beat Sky to multi room streaming.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by passingbat

You say that, and I know what you mean. But I remember being frustrated at Sky having a PVR and Telewest not having one. But Telewest brought out a better one with a larger hard drive and three tuners. Now VM have Tivo, which trounces the Sky HD box.

I agree 100% however I had a shot of the Youview box last week and was fairly impressed. It's not as good as TiVo but does offer many of the same key features. What I'm suggesting is if Youview are able to launch a PVR which is fairly similar to the one offered by Virgin, it shouldn't be too difficult for SKY to put together a PVR which gives Virgin and BT a run for their money.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by Chad

however I had a shot of the Youview box last week and was fairly impressed. It's not as good as TiVo but does offer many of the same key features. .

I've seen a few posts on the DS forum and some aren't too impressed. Of the few complaints I can remember, there is no search feature for the linear channels and you can't add any padding to recordings (though I believe it has a dynamic EPG). You can't do any manual tuning and are limited to auto tune based on a postcode. The opinion seems to be that it's suitable for users who just want basic functionality, which was probably the aim. But I remember thinking how massively feature rich Tivo is in comparison.

Sky have the funds to devlop a new box; I suspect they're even doing it now. but the development cycle for youview and even the VM Tivo shows that it's not a piece of cake and There's not a lot of functionality that Tivo is missing anyway.

[andy_m]

TiVo is ten years plus in the making. Youview looks good but took years of delays to get it to market. Sky might be cash rich but it really isn't easy to develop this sort of product, and besides, I'm not convinced the majority of Sky customers would be bothered by it. After all, most people want connected services to access the sort of content already available on the basic Sky platform.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by andy_m

TiVo is ten years plus in the making. Youview looks good but took years of delays to get it to market. Sky might be cash rich but it really isn't easy to develop this sort of product, and besides, I'm not convinced the majority of Sky customers would be bothered by it. After all, most people want connected services to access the sort of content already available on the basic Sky platform.

Trust me when I say there are many more advancements coming to Sky , both on the STB software and via mobile devices , with the change recently too the new EPG Sky have made a lot of changes to the back end meaning they can now update the software faster than before , features such as the new undelete , catchup TV , planner sharing. If the forums are anything to go by it would appear a lot of advanced functionality will be added over time to the iPad app , it will launch shortly with remote control functionality and Sky+HD subscribers will be able to access their planner on the second screen. I would suspect it will launch with this functionality and receive regular updates adding many more features.

[RB2004]

I think the only solution, which I heard ofcom considering at one point, would be to split up bskyb into 2 companies, distribution and tv they said this would create a fairer competition environment as vm, bt, topuptv etc would have access to all the same channels as sky.. No exclusive sky only channels like Atlantic that give them a competitive advantage.. Especially when like me I have witnessed sky salesman going around selling sky to vm customers on the premise they have channels vm don't when the truth is the only reason vm don't have is because sky won't release them.

Also it would make pricing more competitive, as sky would have to buy the channels at the same rate as bt and vm and topuptv, so prices would become more competitive and reasonable.

Originally Posted by RB2004

I think the only solution, which I heard ofcom considering at one point, would be to split up bskyb into 2 companies, distribution and tv they said this would create a fairer competition environment as vm, bt, topuptv etc would have access to all the same channels as sky.. No exclusive sky only channels like Atlantic that give them a competitive advantage.. Especially when like me I have witnessed sky salesman going around selling sky to vm customers on the premise they have channels vm don't when the truth is the only reason vm don't have is because sky won't release them.

Also it would make pricing more competitive, as sky would have to buy the channels at the same rate as bt and vm and topuptv, so prices would become more competitive and reasonable.

I am afraid OFCOM missed that boat when they did their mammouth almost three year pay tv review a while back.

The above makes absolute sense to me.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by RB2004

I think the only solution, which I heard ofcom considering at one point, would be to split up bskyb into 2 companies, distribution and tv they said this would create a fairer competition environment as vm, bt, topuptv etc would have access to all the same channels as sky.. No exclusive sky only channels like Atlantic that give them a competitive advantage.. Especially when like me I have witnessed sky salesman going around selling sky to vm customers on the premise they have channels vm don't when the truth is the only reason vm don't have is because sky won't release them.

Also it would make pricing more competitive, as sky would have to buy the channels at the same rate as bt and vm and topuptv, so prices would become more competitive and reasonable.

Gets my vote

[muppetman11]

Over time won't the platform become irrelevant anyway , more and more users are wanting access to content on a plethora of connected devices hence why the likes of Netflix , Lovefilm instant and Now TV have cropped up.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Sirius

Gets my vote

Seconded.

[Telly_]

Also prevent VM withholding access to it cable network, that gets my vote as i once saw a VM salesmen selling VM On the premise sky can't have access to its cable network.


But if Sky does get split expect VM to go out of business, sky will sell its services at rock bottom prices, VM are an always will be stuck with the huge cost of maintaining a cable network. Satalite distribution per home is a fraction of the cost of cable.

VM really do not want a price war