General : BT Sports - Will you pay extra for it???

[tvtimes]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

How do you know?

Seriously, where is the benefit to BT to offer their sports offering free to VM XL customers? BT are more interesting in securing VM customers to their platform rather than helping VM's platform to be more attractive.

ESPN had no infrastructure so had to wholesale to SKY and VM because they needed the money.
BT has a massive customer base already in place to cross sell to. This is about their BB product and making and retaining BB subs. If they sell to VM then they are essentially giving VM an upper hand and VM can bundle the sports offering as they fit.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

Seriously, where is the benefit to BT to offer their sports offering free to VM XL customers? BT are more interesting in securing VM customers to their platform rather than helping VM's platform to be more attractive.

ESPN had no infrastructure so had to wholesale to SKY and VM because they needed the money.
BT has a massive customer base already in place to cross sell to. This is about their BB product and making and retaining BB subs. If they sell to VM then they are essentially giving VM an upper hand and VM can bundle the sports offering as they fit.

You make some interesting points there , having read all the info now from press releases , analysts opinions , users opinions etc I can see now what BT's strategy appears to be and it makes sense.

BT Vision in its current form can't rival VM TV or Sky TV so to make BT Sports cheap purely on their own TV platform would have been a mistake , instead they've elected to offer BT Sports free with BT Broadband which gives them a chance to increase their BB subscriber base even further while continually improving their TV service in the hope that further down the line those customers with only Phone/BB will be tempted and add Infinty fibre if not already available and their tv product.

[colin25]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

You make some interesting points there , having read all the info now from press releases , analysts opinions , users opinions etc I can see now what BT's strategy appears to be and it makes sense.

BT Vision in its current form can't rival VM TV or Sky TV so to make BT Sports cheap purely on their own TV platform would have been a mistake , instead they've elected to offer BT Sports free with BT Broadband which gives them a chance to increase their BB subscriber base even further while continually improving their TV service in the hope that further down the line those customers with only Phone/BB will be tempted and add Infinty fibre if not already available and their tv product.

Which is why i see BT as rivals mainly to Virgin, but can squeeze sky's broadband as well.

[tvtimes]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

You make some interesting points there , having read all the info now from press releases , analysts opinions , users opinions etc I can see now what BT's strategy appears to be and it makes sense.

BT Vision in its current form can't rival VM TV or Sky TV so to make BT Sports cheap purely on their own TV platform would have been a mistake , instead they've elected to offer BT Sports free with BT Broadband which gives them a chance to increase their BB subscriber base even further while continually improving their TV service in the hope that further down the line those customers with only Phone/BB will be tempted and add Infinty fibre if not already available and their tv product.

Thanks mate, nice of you to say.

I agree with what you have said as well. It's all about retaining at the moment, getting significant gains and reducing churn and then once they have done this, they can start investing more heavily into their tv platform and go down the same route as Sky and create more of their own channels etc. Then eventually, some way down the line - sky/vm customers are going to be more inclined to take tv as well.

Youview has massive scope and potential, it has been no where near realised as of yet.

---------- Post added at 15:53 ---------- Previous post was at 15:47 ----------

Originally Posted by colin25

Which is why i see BT as rivals mainly to Virgin, but can squeeze sky's broadband as well.

Personally mate, I feel it's more of a gauntlet to Sky. Reasons being is VM customers get fibre as standard whereas with BT they will only get it if they can get Infinity. Most people aren't going to want to leave and get slower adsl speeds. Most VM subscribers do not take Sky sports either, so are less inclined to switch to get free sport.

The other reason behind my thinking is they have moved in to the same market that Sky has been dominating for 21 years. Sport. This is a serious gauntlet BT have thrown down. Serious sports fans will be able to keep their tv and sky sports sub but by simply moving their broadband (which is painless because it's the same network so can keep their same landline number etc) to BT and they get extra sports channels free! Win, win really for sports fans.
Sky have taken £5m BT broadband customers from BT since 2006 and they want those customer back. Offer them sports and they're less likely to leave again. Which means any net adds that BT earn in customers will be profitable rather than offsetting their lost customers. = more profits for an already incredibly profitable business.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

I can see a major problem here for VM. BT have already said that they plan to 'pinch' customers from Sky, Talk Talk and VM. With reduced payments on deals.

I cannot really see it happening with Sky, BUT l can see VM getting into serious trouble, with customers going over to Sky or BT.

Sky can offer this FREE to its customers, using the BB as the bait, as it has unlimited BB, with VM it has limited BB which causes a lot of problems. Unless Berkett and his directors coming up with a brilliant idea, l can see a lot happening before August.

[andy_m]

You reckon Berkett will leave?

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

with VM it has limited BB which causes a lot of problems..

What is limited about VM BB?

I can download as much as I want.

OK, after a certain amount of download, the speed is reduced, but that doesn't stop me downloading. And my capped speed is way faster than Sky ADSL on full speed!

I personally have only had insignificant, problems with the BB which have happened extremely rarely.

---------- Post added at 22:01 ---------- Previous post was at 21:57 ----------

Originally Posted by andy_m

You reckon Berkett will leave?

He's being replaced by an ex Sky man, who I think is actually a Sky plant. But then again, I probably do watch too many TV conspiracy shows....

Talking of which... great to hear that 24's coming back.

[andy_m]

Sorry, I was trying to be amusing!

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by andy_m

Sorry, I was trying to be amusing!

I know

[cupcakes aka dd]

I'm sick of this who has what on my platform and join me if you want to watch it. Competition at the expense of the general public. Let me throw something radical out there to everyone. Let everyone watch everything that is available out there. Let's share like one human race!

Pause....................didn't think so. Oh well, back to the ******** then.

[Marleigh]

I for one will be expecting a reduction in the price of the XL package if Virgin lose ESPN/ESPN America from it. If not then I'll be dropping Virgin and go Freeview with a Netflix subscription which gives me a huge amount more to watch than the Virgin catch up etc service (I run my PS3 with a US DNS setting so that I can watch US Netflix, and my 360 has UK settings so I can watch UK Netflix)

It seems every time a deal is struck we get less choice. BT's 'free' sport would cost a fitting fee for phone lines etc for me plus obviously the broadband/phone line rental and I'm not even in an Infinity area so would be getting worse BB.

I'll just make do with listening to football on 5 Live, watching highlights on MOTD/Football League show and the occasional stream. I'd be more disappointed with losing Baseball/US college sports but I can at least watch highlight from those on Xbox apps.

[johnasimmons]

To be honest we don't know yet if VM will get BT Sports or not...

[tvtimes]

Originally Posted by Marleigh

I for one will be expecting a reduction in the price of the XL package if Virgin lose ESPN/ESPN America from it. If not then I'll be dropping Virgin and go Freeview with a Netflix subscription which gives me a huge amount more to watch than the Virgin catch up etc service (I run my PS3 with a US DNS setting so that I can watch US Netflix, and my 360 has UK settings so I can watch UK Netflix)

It seems every time a deal is struck we get less choice. BT's 'free' sport would cost a fitting fee for phone lines etc for me plus obviously the broadband/phone line rental and I'm not even in an Infinity area so would be getting worse BB.

I'll just make do with listening to football on 5 Live, watching highlights on MOTD/Football League show and the occasional stream. I'd be more disappointed with losing Baseball/US college sports but I can at least watch highlight from those on Xbox apps.

If you take phone and BB, there is no fitting fee. It is waived unless you take BT'S capped Infinity option.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

Seriously, where is the benefit to BT to offer their sports offering free to VM XL customers? BT are more interesting in securing VM customers to their platform rather than helping VM's platform to be more attractive.

ESPN had no infrastructure so had to wholesale to SKY and VM because they needed the money.
BT has a massive customer base already in place to cross sell to. This is about their BB product and making and retaining BB subs. If they sell to VM then they are essentially giving VM an upper hand and VM can bundle the sports offering as they fit.

You are forgetting that BT have already stated that they want BT Sports to be available on all platforms. They have also said that they are making football more accessible to the general population and at lower prices than Sky.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that VM will be providing BT Sports to its customers. The only question is at what price and whether there will be any bundle incentives.

Of course BT won't give the channel away to VM; clearly they will charge for it. However, VM may decide to make it available to their subscribers at a reduced charge, or maybe even free, even if it means taking a hit.

I do think BT Sport will be an attractive proposition to those sports fans who cannot afford (or don't wish to pay for) Sky Sports. There are potentially more customers that can be encouraged to sign up for VM if the deal was right.

[Doug P]

Yes it is cheaper, but it won't work for me having the slot they do.

Saturday lunchtime is a non-starter for me.