TV – the big picture
Susan Edmunds looks at the complicated and fast-moving world of television offerings.
Sky’s latest effort to tweak its model is likely to be unsuccessful in an increasingly competitive entertainment market, commentators say.
The broadcaster last month revealed that it was cutting its cheapest package price by half, to
$24.91 a month.
The new entry-level package would have half the channels of the previous cheapest option.
But customers can now get a bundle including Sky Sports for
$54.81 a month, instead of the current minimum of $79.81, by ditching some news and entertainment channels.
Commentator Peter Griffin, of the Science Media Centre, said things were changing too fast for traditional pay TV models to cope. ‘‘It’s a cynical ploy to maximise the revenue from its dwindling customer base as long as it can . . . That strategy may run out of steam pretty quickly.’’
He said the competition that streaming companies had brought into the market over the past three years had forced a change.
Netflix was adding large amounts of content, and had signalled it would spend US$8 billion ($11b) on buying more this year. More than 400,000 New Zealand households have access to the service. Lightbox had also signalled it would relaunch in the middle of the year with movies and potentially sport on demand, too. It has 300,000 customers.
Faced with the options of Netflix, Neon, Lightbox, Sky – and then some, it can be hard to know where to start.
Consumer NZ technology writer Hadyn Green said consumers had much more choice than they had ever had before.
He advised trying out a few options by using free trials.
Many of the on-demand services offer new subscribers a couple of weeks free.
‘‘Netflix has the option that if [a programme] is not there, it says ‘these things are like that’. Have a proper search through before you decide.’’
Most providers roll straight on to a paid subscription at the end of the free period, so it was important to note the date.
Griffin said that for many people, the choice would also be driven by their comfort with handling the technology. ‘‘The first barrier to entry when you take the Sky decoder out is, how do you get it to the TV?’’
If you want to use a set-top box, you might be limited to Freeview.
If you have a Smart TV, using online services is much more straightforward. Without one, services such as Netflix need a Chromecast or Apple TV device to get the stream to the set.
Griffin said the next question was: Do you want sports?
Sometimes, that was customers’ sole reason for sticking with Sky.
‘‘If you want Super Rugby, All Blacks games, cricket or tennis – if you want them as they happen, you’re basically looking at Sky ... If Netflix ever went into sport and you could buy everything through Netflix that would be scary for Sky,’’ Griffin said.
Commentator Paul Spain, of Gorilla Technology, said it was a problem for Sky that sport fans were forced into it rather than being excited about joining.
He said sporting bodies were likely to start stream their own content for fans. Consumers might pay for access only to the sports they wanted to watch.
Green said Netflix was the standout offering in the market at the moment.
‘‘They’re releasing movies and TV shows all the time. It used to be that American Netflix was the best but now New Zealand’s is not so bad.’’