How Will Sky Respond to Freesat

Now that Freesat (care of the BBC and ITV) are providing free access to
literally hundreds of free satellite tv channels covering virtually every
subject imaginable (youd go stark raving mad if you trid to watch even a
fraction of the hundreds now freely available - after all you can only watch
one at a time!) including almost all the most popular ones eg BBC ITV C4 etc
etc.

And 'free' access to the gradually increasing range of High Definition
channels

And free freesat PVR HD and non HD with receivers with hard disk recording
facilities (very similar to the very popular freeview ones)with boxes soon
to hit the all the shops and supermarkets near you.

All freely available and all non subscription..

What will Sky do to keep its hundreds of pounds a year - nine million
customer base - continuing to cough up loads of money for stuff the BBC and
ITV are now giving away completely free!

baffles me : )

(how Sky will respond - not which one folk will prefer!)

cheers

jb

jb wrote:

: What will Sky do to keep its hundreds of pounds a year - nine million
: customer base - continuing to cough up loads of money for stuff the BBC and
: ITV are now giving away completely free!

Having actually has access to what the BBC/ITV are giving away free I will
be keeping Sky!

: baffles me : )

: (how Sky will respond - not which one folk will prefer!)

I am not sure they have to! Sky have been selling exactly the same channels
via their freesatfromsky route for years!

I predict that Sky will be closer to 10 million subscribers in 12 months time.

uk.media.tv.sky
jb
Wed, 07 May 2008 12:04:48 GMT


What will Sky do to keep its hundreds of pounds a year - nine million
customer base - continuing to cough up loads of money for stuff the BBC and
ITV are now giving away completely free!

baffles me : )

(how Sky will respond - not which one folk will prefer!)


Sky will do nothing different .

For all people have needed to do in the past was to phone sky and cancel
their subscription to have (in effect) a freesat box and channels .


--
www.krustov.co.uk

"Brian McIlwrath" wrote in message
...
jb wrote:


Having actually has access to what the BBC/ITV are giving away free I will
be keeping Sky!

: baffles me : )

: (how Sky will respond - not which one folk will prefer!)

I am not sure they have to! Sky have been selling exactly the same
channels
via their freesatfromsky route for years!

I predict that Sky will be closer to 10 million subscribers in 12 months
time.

i predict that sky will be closer to 6 million subscribers in two years time
and three million in four years time.

whilst you may very well be right - i have assumed that a third of its
existing base will migrate to the 'free' service within two years - egg'd on
by ITV HD which is very popular eg Emerdale Corry etc etc.

i also envisage that video on demand / dominated by endless choice and
providers, will have so broadly changed the tv /video market that the market
which sky is curreently dominating wil have literally completely
'evaproated' away within four years. I personally think that unless it can
do something completely amazing - it doesnt have a hope in hell of hanging
on to its exisiting income/consumer base.

heres a question for you - what does sky actually do for the litterally
billions it currently gets? - what does it do which others cant - indeed
which others will be cueing up tro do in their droves in the not to distant
future..

the key word here is future - its ever more rapid change and nothing, no
company, no product, no service will stay the same for very long at all...

only the lean mean responsive service providers will survive whilst big
dinosaurs which think that everything will be the same tomorrow as it was
yesterday will litteraly turn to dust..

cheers

jb

On May 7, 1:33*pm, Krustov wrote:
uk.media.tv.sky
jb
Wed, 07 May 2008 12:04:48 GMT


What will Sky do to keep its hundreds of pounds a year - nine million
customer base - continuing to cough up loads of money for stuff the BBC and
ITV are now giving away completely free!

baffles me *: )

(how Sky will respond - not which one folk will prefer!)

Sky will do nothing different .

For all people have needed to do in the past was to phone sky and cancel
their subscription to have (in effect) a freesat box and channels .

--www.krustov.co.uk

I imagine Sky's starter offers will be 'free box, free install and
free year of base package'. Then hope people sub up for the next year

jb wrote:

: i predict that sky will be closer to 6 million subscribers in two years time
: and three million in four years time.

Fine - we will see who is correct!

: whilst you may very well be right - i have assumed that a third of its
: existing base will migrate to the 'free' service within two years - egg'd on
: by ITV HD which is very popular eg Emerdale Corry etc etc.

I further predict that ITVHD will be on Sky well before the likes of Corrie
go HD.

: only the lean mean responsive service providers will survive whilst big
: dinosaurs which think that everything will be the same tomorrow as it was
: yesterday will litteraly turn to dust..

Sky have proved pretty adaptable in my eyes. Their move into broadband for
example now means that many subscribers get the basic Sky subscription paid
for by "free" broadband.

They are going for HD in a big way - 30 HD channels by end of 2009.
VOA will come as well.

I just cannot see the Freesat dross having an enormous impact!

In uk.media.tv.sky Ed wrote:

: I imagine Sky's starter offers will be 'free box, free install and
: free year of base package'. Then hope people sub up for the next year

Also phasing out all Sky+ STBs and just supplying HD-capable versions would
be a good idea!

On Wed, 07 May 2008 12:44:30 GMT, "jb" wrote:


whilst you may very well be right - i have assumed that a third of its
existing base will migrate to the 'free' service within two years - egg'd on
by ITV HD which is very popular eg Emerdale Corry etc etc.

Sky's 'normal' churn rate is 10-12%. Which means that each year they lose over 900,000 customers &
if they want to grow their subscriber base they need to recruit about a million new or returning
subscribers. I wouldn't be at all surprised if those figures are adversely affected by the launch of
Freesat.
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

"Brian McIlwrath" wrote in message
...
jb wrote:

: i predict that sky will be closer to 6 million subscribers in two years
time
: and three million in four years time.

Fine - we will see who is correct!

: whilst you may very well be right - i have assumed that a third of its
: existing base will migrate to the 'free' service within two years -
egg'd on
: by ITV HD which is very popular eg Emerdale Corry etc etc.

I further predict that ITVHD will be on Sky well before the likes of
Corrie
go HD.

: only the lean mean responsive service providers will survive whilst big
: dinosaurs which think that everything will be the same tomorrow as it
was
: yesterday will litteraly turn to dust..

Sky have proved pretty adaptable in my eyes. Their move into broadband for
example now means that many subscribers get the basic Sky subscription
paid
for by "free" broadband.

They are going for HD in a big way - 30 HD channels by end of 2009.
VOA will come as well.

if you think 'shows' rather than 'channels' eg when in the not too distant
future traditional channels vanish and content eg shows are all imortant as
is the actual carrier - think of the provider as the link between the show
creator/provider for exmple the bbc and you - what does sky actually have to
offer in this scenario - do they create and provide popular soaps, films,
comedy, entertainment? my understading is that they simply carry most
content... which is exacly what the bbc and itv inted doing for free...


cheers


jb


I just cannot see the Freesat dross having an enormous impact!

On May 7, 2:12*pm, Brian McIlwrath wrote:
In uk.media.tv.sky Ed wrote:

: I imagine Sky's starter offers will be 'free box, free install and
: free year of base package'. Then hope people sub up for the next year

Also phasing out all Sky+ STBs and just supplying HD-capable versions would
be a good idea!

Does an HD box cost more to manufacture? otherwise I dont understand
why they would sell/give away anything else