This is one product that's got dearer over the long term (unlike internet & mobile cost for example) while the product has hardly improved, they've had it too good for too long, the party is over!
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This is one product that's got dearer over the long term (unlike internet & mobile cost for example) while the product has hardly improved, they've had it too good for too long, the party is over!
Market wasn't fooled by the puffed up announcement and downplayed risks. What a thumping, more than half way back to it's $4.11 Jan low. Wait till the punters read this in their newspaper over the weekend, Monday and next week could be really ugly too. SKT needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat, its only strength is it's subscriber base but it doesn't have the business model yet to disrupt it's own business and ensure those subscribers stay connected and keep paying the big bucks for content that can mostly be sourced elsewhere, often for free. Do the maths and extrapolate the subscriber defection trend, to see how long it lasts and what's left. Not to mention the next generation who don't even watch a TV, why would they when they can gorge on unlimited free content from anywhere at anytime. I'd like to see breakdown of the subscribers by age group. Death by a thousand cuts.
Down another 27c today to $4.36, good chance to get down to recent lows of $4.12 in January. Currently $1.19 off recent high on the 4th of May.
You'd be p!$$ed if you bought early last week!
new lows coming I guess? spark - lightbox must be really eating there lunch
as an aside nz herald has been sold? has sky tv brought it? lol
The competition is immense now, with most of the competitors leveraging a lower cost base for distribution. Spotify are now entering the marketplace with their own unique content.
One thing I'll research when I have some spare time is how many hours the average New Zealander spends watching TV, broken down by age and platform. Although we have access to a myriad of content, we personally are watching less that we ever have in the past.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/indu...c-says-analyst
pay for your own channel mix would be my preference, neon is so gabbage as a low cost option
yea all time lows at 3.35 odd during gfc but will be revisited - people loath sky tv from what I read in the newspapers most common complaints rip off , crap channels , cant pick my own channels , repeats , lack of empathy towards customers etc etc
Unfortunately, Sky has become the company NZers love to hate, whether justifiably or not. Sky has become the new Telecom.
While I have my issues with the company, I do not think they deserve a lot of the derision pointed at them.
They have not adjusted to new competition and is preoccupied with milking existing customers, instead of looking at ways to retain them long term. Realistically by adjusting pricing.
Their current strategy involves giving 'free' 3 months' viewing of movies, or sports or 12 months of my Sky to lock subscribers in for another year. Not really working.
If they lose Rugby - GAME OVER!
Losing 45,000 customers = $43m less revenue, and given the nature of their operation (mostly fixed costs) = direct impact on bottom line.
I never cease to surprise myself. Today I bought 10,000 skt which might be cosidered a small parcel for some but represents quite a lot for me.
I'm fully aware that there are challenging times ahead and Netflix and Lightbox will offer stiff competition. Sky does have some great content and people do like live sport. We live in interesting times.
Definitely a fair comment about the streaming services RTM. Netflix have said they're not going near sports, however, things can change I guess. It was hard call between SKT and putting more into WHS.
How sustainable do you think the div is Bobdn ; have you done any projections? 30c a year is currently pretty juicy.
I really don't know. I bought anticipating some sort of cut in the future. Gross dividend is over 10% so that surely can't last. Share price has dropped 25% over the last few weeks so I assume people aren't expecting a 30 cent dividend next year.
MorningStar..."...We believe the time has come for management to bite the strategic bullet and consider lowering its prices. While we appreciate the reluctance to sacrifice the current average revenue per user, or ARPU, of almost NZD 80 per month, Sky's value proposition is losing lustre against the NZD 10 per month products offered by streaming providers such as Netflix. By lowering the basic tier price of NZD 49 per month, Sky may be able to stem the subscriber losses and have a better chance to showcase its superior content library (for example, exclusive rugby) and product offering (for example, Neon, FanPass).
This brings us to the board's current deliberation on capital management options. Some investors appear to prefer some form of capital return. However, for Sky's long-term strategic sake, we would prefer the company maintains current dividends (equating to 7% yield) and uses its financial flexibility to execute the aforementioned repricing strategy and reignite subscriber growth...."
Well, I know I couldn't talk her indoors into dumping Sky...
Cutting prices? Don't think so!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/indu...-by-30-million
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/sky-rai...mbers-b-189118
What do we call this, just pure arrogance stemmed out of the monopolistic position. One of my colleague just cancelled their subscription and ordered a Kodi IPTV box as mentioned here before.
Kodi IPTV has really picked up in the past 18months or so since the boxes themselves have become better equipped hardware wise. It's still relatively under the radar.
Good time buy into it and enjoy it while the user base is relatively low and uncrowded.
The fat cats know what they need to do but will be unwilling to do so until its too late. Unfortunately for them, the sports channel which has been the golden goose for so long may eventually be their demise.
At current pricing there is 100% no chance of me subscribing, but at say $30 for basic and another $30-40 for ALL of the add-ons I 100% would.
Really what I would prefer is cheaper streaming of their sport channels (or just all content) because set top boxes are obsolete now. Neon for $20/month is OK but fan pass for $56/month is insane.
And charging extra (especially $10) just for HD in this decade is the most backwards thing ever, there's no excuse for it to not be HD by default. I haven't watched a single thing in SD since '06
But that's all just a dream and will never happen, so not something I personally choose to invest in.
Sky TV have relied on the inertia of their subscriber base not to do anything else, they have deployed the MySky box which effectively records all the subscribers favourite content that they have to hand back when they quit the subscription (and made it a black box so the content can't be copied), made the very smallest possible investment in SkyGo and Neon as well as trying to corner the content that some demographics is more important than putting the food on the table.
There will always be those who have the means and know how to go elsewhere for their content or move away from linear delivery of the content. Sky are betting that their exclusive content and that the vast majority of their subscriber base is too lazy, too ignorant, too blindly loyal to care shelling out more for what they serve up.
And mostly they have been exceptionally good at milking the subscribers for a long period of time. It might be the milking of the cash cow but they're betting that despite losing subscribers they will continue producing lots of cash to keep enough of the content under wraps and keep doing enough to make it easy enough to keep that Sky decoder in the cabinet under the TV.
Well the article in NBR today states that they plan to lose 45,000 subscribers this year. At $80 per month that is a reduction of $45M
They also state that they plan to gain 25,000 Neon customers. Cool. I think Neon is $20 a month so that's $6M.
It's understandable right now that costs are rising, more players equal higher costs as bidding goes up. This with a backdrop of a smaller number of customers is not good. Is this just the start? What if they lose 100,000 customers next year? There are not many businesses that can afford to drop that amount of revenue which really must be all profit as I can't imagine they have that many variable costs in the business.
Another important factor to take into account is that a proportion of those customers who have re-joined the service may have done so through the razor sharp deals that have been running of late and are therefore paying significantly less (up to 50%) than existing customers.
I just think these guys are just so far out of touch. I'm sure John Fellet is a good guy, but he's been either COO or CEO since 1991.
When a company is the most unpopular/hated in NZ - you have to wonder, especially when are in the business of entertainment. Not like bloody insurance or oil companies, polluting the world.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11614783
The small price rise is symptomatic of this. Brings in relatively small extra revenue, but another nail to many subscribers.
Well much like refrigerators killed the ice industry, internet TV is going to kill Sky. The weird part is that they appear to have been blind-sided by a slow moving freight train.
Technically InternetTV is agnostic to the underlying transmission medium. Connections could be provided via satellite, copper, fibre, microwave links, or by carrier pigeon and despite the latency & packet loss introduced by the latter, the end result is that the content is still delivered to the customer which at the end of the day, is all they care about in terms of delivery.
I think the real battle here is being fought on a number of different fronts, such as linear v on-demand, original v purchased content, the battle against regionalised rights, price point etc. As others have highlighted, Sky has made moves into this arena via Neon and the IP-based on-demand service rolled out to the new decoders and while this is a good start, they have completed this too late and are perceived by the majority as still far too expensive. Their corporate malaise has tarnished their brand and reputation amongst consumers.
Sky's content providers also need a wakeup call with regards to pricing. HBO charge handsomely for regional rights to shows such as GoT, Homeland etc. and this needs to change very quickly. So even if Sky want to be nimble, they are facing significant hurdles from upstream suppliers. Sky could consider original content, but IMO they are too small a player to make this feasible.
Despite increasing content costs, IMO they should have taken this opportunity to stay prices or minimise the increase, instead it appears to be business as usual which is most disappointing.
On the InternetTV front some consolidation will undoubtedly happen. To watch the various shows you are interested in often entails subscribing to multiple services. This is still more cost effective than a standard Sky subscription, but invariably ends much higher than that enticing $12/month entry point for Netflix, Lightbox or other players in the market offer.
There is also the disintermediation and disruptive factor of major sporting franchises, including NZ and World Rugby (the Sky cash cows) realising that they don't need a content distributor in the internet on-demand age.
Anyone, including sporting franchises, can be their own content distributor leveraging multiple internet 'TV / video' channels, reaching out to the whole world, offering a pay-per view service at a minuscule fraction of the cost to viewers of current monopoly content distributors like Sky.
The rate at which Sky's content distribution model unravels will accelerate, it is most certainly not going away.
So whats with SKT today, SP up 10c in a soggy market. Did it just get oversold or is there a new factor here?
Sky is not just a content distributor. Sky also provides the camera crew, all the equipment, commentary staff, backroom editing functions, primary transmission consolidation, advertising and promotion, support programming etc
AFAIK there is no other company in NZ that can currently step into this role, and Sky won't be offering an easy path of entry for any rivals
NZ is such a small market globally, there is little likelihood of an international company trying their luck in godzone
So content may be king, but without production capabilities it is of little value
The streaming controversy from Saturday night's boxing match between Parker and Takam is a watershed moment for New Zealand television sporting history. I expect to see this problem exacerbate over the long term.
Has the sky sports monopoly finally been broken?
It's going to effect all major sporting events from now on. The next All Black game will all be lived streamed for free.
Both Facebook and Youtube have only just recently introduced this new live streaming technology. This is a game changer! The technology is so easy even a 12 year old could set it up within mins!
Before, it was actually quite different to pirate content, you needed a little bit of experince. You had to record it, then recode the video, then upload it. The content would effectively be delayed a few hours, which is basically like viewing a reply. Now it's LIVE, with the added bonus of social interaction, like the ability to make live comments. It's way better!
The Parker and Takam fight wasn't just recorded from Sky. There was a UK version streaming on youtube with about 2000 viewers.
There's absolutely no way SKY or any other content provider can stop this!
I used to have sky but found i had 100 channels of crap to wade through rather than half a dozen. I dont watch much tv so im proably not part of the target market.
But today Spark has given me lightbox for free. No idea what this is but looks like tv with no ads. Also looks like it is High Definition content
Spark also gave me a Tivo for free so I'm ad free as well
Spark are also giving me free fibre to go with my unlimited broadband plan - which they also upgraded year on year at no extra cost.
In essence seems im getting a truck load of HD tv viewing for free. And sky are putting there prices up. Go figure!
A mate of mine was watching Super Rugby and All Blacks games when based in Holland in 2008 via streams... (live) or maybe delayed by about 5 seconds. And good enough streams to be able to see the ball well and invite ppl round to watch the games. The streams were reliable as well. I guess you just need to know where to find them. If sky or the All Blacks had offered a pay per view web based content he may have been tempted but sometimes you just do what you need to do. (Not many places in Holland show the rugby)
Sky need to change their game, more and more ppl I speak to are streaming rugby games and watching it via streams on their own tv's.
The Parker Takam fight was shown free on SKY sports 3 in the UK... plenty of streams from this source too and by all accounts very clear viewing and better commentators too by all accounts.
Lightbox, Neon, and the NZ version of Netflix are all crap. That's why they're effectively giving them away for free.
These models work by having one or two "flagship programs", that are bundled together with lots of low quality/cheap content. This model was first created by HBO back in the late 1990's with their flagship program "The Sopranos".
Sky's version is Soho, in which "Game of Thrones" is their flagship program, which basically carriers the entire channel. It should be called "Game Of Thrones Channel", not Soho. This series is due to finish soon, so Sky is on the lookout for a replacement. If it can't find one, the chancel will die.
The entire Sky revenue model is built around 3 things, the All Blacks, the Black Caps, and Game of Thrones. Everything else is just a "clip on".
Sky raised their prices recently, which is really just a tax on the baby boomer "TV generation", who don't know how to use a computer. They'll be able to suck the blood out of them for a while yet... until they all end up in a rest home.
The Sky "ship" has been leaking for some time now, but on Saturday night she got torpedoed and she's going down like the Lusitania.
If you've got a smart TV, you can access Lightbox without connecting to a computer. On a Samsung, you hit Smart Hub and you will see Lightbox in the display, along with Netflix, You Tube, etc.
They have some great programs on Lightbox. We've just finished watching 3 seasons each of 10 episodes of The Bridge - a Swedish/Danish crime program we became addicted to.
Additionally, if you have WIFI, a tablet (Android, Windows Surface or a iPad - actually it will work on an iPhone or an Android phone), a spare HDMI port on your TV and a $70 device called a Google Chromecast you don't even have to have a Samsung SmartTV to watch Lightbox either. With this kit (and the services of your tech enabled average teenager) you can watch watch SkyGo (subscription and password dependent - noting that I would never suggest you breach the terms of service), YouTube on your TV (but not watching any of the streams of live Sports coverage that would breach the terms of service) and lots of content on Vimeo and other services.
Also if you happened to be a subscriber to Amazon Prime, you could potentially watch something called 'The Grand Tour' with three aging british motoring presenters when it is available sometime later this year. If you were interested. Which of course, you might not be. But then again you might be vaguely interested. Possibly.
I have a smart tv but im not bright enough to know how to use it. Might try hitting some buttons tonight and see what happens.
Hopefully not another channel with nothing to watch on it.
Edit. So I have a Smart TV. but not a Young TV. Its too old for the Lightbox App. But it does have Quikflic and Net Flix so ïll ask spark for one of those. Also found it has about 50 other channels of TV in the Apps section so no shortage of stuff to graze on if I ever had the time or inclination.
SKT shareprice up 13c today. This is probably why.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/fellet-...tions-b-189445
Wow, that's really interesting. I bought Sky "it's a dinosaur and you shouldn't touch it with a barge poll" TV at the same time as I bought Air "the special dividend will bigger than the mass of the universe and Dreamliners burn 20% less fuel" New Zealand. One worked out better than the other (but it's early days). Markets are funny!
Another fiasco....
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11648096
I've just made the move to 2 degrees for my UFB. Cheaper than Spark and comes with Neon for six months, which has more stuff that I want to watch than Spark's Lightbox.
Hmm, for an "old dinosaur" as Sky has been referred to time and time again in this thread, it seems to have a few tricks.
Just rejoined Fatso (owned by Sky) and ordered the first season of True Detective on Blu ray. I love using the products of companies I'm invested in. Just as well I don't own Sky City.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opin...-false-promise
A possible Vodafone and Sky merger? The plot thickens.
Cable companies in the US are still making money hand over fist (despite absolute, categorical, no brainer predictions that they wouldn't exist by now because, you know, every one knows precisely the way industry and markets will go) because in part they also deliver internet.
On the one hand I want capital back because I need to build a retaining wall up the back. On the other hand I hope they'll be able to pull off something good so I can build my retaining wall and also paint my house and schedule another big trip to Thailand in the future. Hard call.
The problem is not Sky being old, it is the investment required just to maintain market share when so much competition arrives. Doesn't make for particularly compelling fundamentals when Sky has to invest more on technology, programming and customer experience and still be losing revenue share to competition.
There is also one "old" behaviour that isn't particularly appealing; their monopoly position permitted sub-standard attitudes towards customer experience. This is again rich ground for interlopers to gain share at Sky's expense. Culture makes for a tough turnaround proposition.
Check out Youtube's new pay channel Youtube Red.
Be a real shame for Sky if Google invested its cash in content and told its geeks to build a viewing client that actually works.
Boop boop de do
Marilyn
Oh yeah lots of uncertainty that's for sure. Google already wants to take on the cable companies. Sky is 3.63% of my portfolio. Everything in moderation :)
Whats up? Trading halt
I did think Fellet was a being a bit dismissive when talking to NBR about the vodafone merger.....
https://www.nzx.com/companies/SKT/announcements/283667
Chart is not looking the best..
Not drawn in on the chart is the primary downtrend line..The 5.49 high point on 5 May before the gap down happened to nearly touch that primary downtrend line adding confirmation of a continuing downtrend (bear cycle) for SKT
http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/q...2007062016.png
Below is a live 15 minute chart show the last 5 days of trading
Something happened yesterday lunchtime (see large candlestick bar)..I personally call this activity a P wave as reference to a first tremor before an earthquake..it was under low volume however so its suspect...but it did happened... so.. did some small investor have insider knowledge?...also... it broke the EMA 50 period (750 minutes)..a bearish technical action..
Between 1 and 2pm the shareprice pullback to meet the price break occurred but could not break back up ...resulting in larger volume selling breaking the EMA 100 period (1500 minutes) at 3.00pm..A candlestick hammer after 4pm suggests someone thought SKT had fallen too far and bought in...
From the chart, it seems a rumour was out in the marketplace after 2pm yesterday.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/kaa...045&mocktick=1
SKY Network Television Limited – Vodafone Discussions..
https://nzx.com/companies/SKT/announcements/283667
Sudden price 5.5% drop by SPK this morning.
Maybe Spark involved here?
More likely that SPK shareholders are worried that a Vodafone\Sky merger would present meaningful competition on the entertainment\streaming front.
So we are in discussions which may or may not lead to anything .....and the trading halt continues
Hmmm
As a shareholder but non user of SKY looks like i am in for some entertainment.
I wonder if Spark tooling around with SVOD (via Light box) "awoke a sleeping giant", to use that Pearl Harbour quote. We'll never know of course.
Mysky is very sluggish to respond. I can usually find something decent to record - even if my subscription plan does not cover it :(
Other complaints include: inability to record a high definition channel in standard def and (related) small hard drive capacity.
Disc: Former shareholder
Hopefully a combined entity would ditch the existing VFTV box in favour of a higher-end third party box. The VF branded box provides a truly awful customer experience, however it is early days yet and nothing may eventuate from this discussion.
SKT owning the core BB network would provide it with some interesting opportunities at a much better price point. Whether they would use this just to increase their margins further remains to be seen.
Deal done
Only need minimoke and his mates to agree
I'd say Vodafone done well out of this deal
be interesting to see spark response as vodaphone / sky merger would create a bigger player although sky are doing this play to enable them to renew sport content with vodaphones cashflow I reckon
Anyone got a view on this yet?
Vodafone issued shares at $5.40.
Dividend payout 85%-100%, expected to be 37.5 cents. Spark and Sky's divi yield very similar at 9.3% currently, giving a price of $4.16 using a 9% yield.
This is a first for me, haven't owned a company that is being taken over. Have only been a shareholder for 3 weeks!
51% of the merger with Voda Global....that would be interesting when voting
Yes thats what I meant, Sky is purchasing Vodafone but the biggest shareholder is Vodafone so Sky actually has no say when voting. Is it just me that finds that strange?
So Sky are doing the buying but the Vodafone guy will be getting the top job? Interesting
https://www.nzx.com/companies/SKT/announcements/283722
I'm just wondering what the $5.40 share price actually means.
Sky/Vodafone could have just as easily have announced that the new shares were valued at $100 each and that Sky was paying $400 billion for Vodafone.
The $5.40 seems like a made-up number intended to inflate the value of the offer. It's not like Sky or Vodafone (who's taking over who) is actually paying $5.40. It's just a paper transaction.
At yesterday's price of $4.47 it's really a takeover/merger valued at $3,060 million. Or at $5.40 it's $3,437 million. I guess the market will decide in due course.
Imagine being one of those institutional investors that were dumping sky in 10m lot parcels just a few weeks back. Was that the right call? I still don't understand what all this means
I don't think Sky got a good deal here. Vodafone has $2.2bill in assets and $1.9bill in liabilities and made a loss last year of $120mill. Also in Telecoms, capital investment is large and in blocks. 5G is on its way and 2degrees and Spark will be able to ramp up the pressure especially as both Sky and Vodafone are consistently rated as the worst when it comes to customer service. Looking forward to Spark really trying to do a deal with Netflix and even competing for the Rugby rights next round.
On the plus side I think Vodafone management is better than Sky and probably has a better handle going forward and there might be a chance in the future where vodafone might want to go to 100% ownership again.
Looking forward to seeing how this turns out but I if I was a sky shareholder I would be a little pissed.
I think it forces spark hand to go after sports content now
[QUOTE=Nevl;624010
Looking forward to seeing how this turns out but I if I was a sky shareholder I would be a little pissed.[/QUOTE]
This one's happy as...bought on the drop the other day and just sold for 5.25