Now TV sparks BT and Sky rift
JUST when you thought another front couldn’t open up between BT and Sky, a new potential rift has emerged.
Despite the fast-approaching season of goodwill, it seems there’s little prospect of football in no-man’s land this Christmas for the sides in Britain’s biggest media battle.
The latest spat concerns technology used by Sky’s on-demand service, Now TV.
Currently, anyone forking out for the company’s £10 Now TV box, and paying £5 a month, has access to its catch-up service on popular shows such as Game of Thrones or The Wire as well as live channels that include Sky Sports, depending on their package.
But when Now TV is used on BT or TalkTalk’s specially built TV boxes – which use technology from the YouView company – the live channels don’t work.
Now Sky is in talks with BT (up 1p at 411.1p) and TalkTalk (1.7p better at 306p) about pulling the technology altogether from the platform. It would also help contribute to Sky’s finances by cutting out the annual £250,000 fee it has to pay for its rivals to allow the service on their machines.
The company last week raised £600m for its war chest by flogging 80pc of online betting arm Sky Bet to private equity house CVC.
But shares slipped after analysts raised questions over whether Sky would be killing its fledgling golden goose by unplugging Now TV from almost a million homes.
Ian Whittaker at Liberum said: ‘If this happened, this would (presumably) hit Sky’s sub numbers or at least its growth.’
He said Sky no longer splits traditional, subscription pay TV customers – who can fork out £60 a month – from its on-demand customers who pay as little as £5 a month.
‘The assumption is most of the growth comes from Now TV,’ he added.
The suggestion is that most people who want Sky Sports already have it, while Now TV attracts new customers keen to watch the occasional sporting event or get stuck into new box-set series.
Sky shares hit a 14-month high of 949.5p the day before it announced the Sky Bet sale last week. They have since slipped and yesterday closed 2p shy at 918p. As goes America, so goes the world. The former patriotic battle-hymn for Stars and Stripes enthusiasts probably has to be rewritten to include China, judging by yesterday’s trading. This year its economy, the second-largest in the world, is set to notch up its slowest rate of annual growth in a quarter of a century.
Fresh worries over the country dragged down commodities stocks yesterday, with colossus Glencore leading the headlong charge downwards.
The company, which refused to mention the ‘elephant in the room’ of a bid for Rio Tinto at this week’s capital markets day, slipped 4pc to finish 11.45p lower at 294.85p.
It was joined on the loserboard by Fresnillo (off 25p at 745p), Anglo American (down 34.5p at 1173p) and Randgold Resources (110p lower at 4261p).
John B Smith, senior fund manager at Brown Shipley, said: ‘Worries about global growth, particularly the slowdown in China, will continue to put pressure on many commodities. FTSE 100 has fallen below 6,500.
‘It looks slightly oversold and might try to rally, but downside pressures will remain into early next year.’
It looks like any ‘Santa rally’ – the annual last hurrah from City traders before they depart to hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve – will be significantly slimmer than in previous years.
The FTSE dropped below 6,500 for the first time in five weeks, closing 38 points worse off at 6461.70.
A late buying spree propelled drugs giant Shire, which narrowly escaped from the jaws of tax-shifting AbbVie earlier in the year, to the top of the blue chip leaderboard. Shares climbed 136p to 4565p.
Rolls-Royce fell almost 3pc following suggestions from Airbus that it could stop making the superjumbo Airbus A380 planes, for which the British aerospace giant makes the engines. Shares were sold down to 829.5p before easing to close 24.5p lower at 831.5p.
The FTSE 250 closed 74 points lower at 15,663.52, with Spirent Communications the biggest climbers, up 5.05p at 71.20p, and Ferrexpo being the worst performer, down 3.65p at 57.35p.
Not that it is likely to bring much consolation for the army of retail investors who have lost up to 95pc of their money, but Quindell shares climbed by 10pc yesterday to 36p.
They rose from an all-time low of 24p during the previous trading session after it emerged that founder Rob Terry made £9.2m selling shares – on top of the £6m share windfall he walked away with after being let go earlier this month. ÷ THERE was no hint of the blues when Focusrite, the recording studio kit-maker founded by Led Zeppelin engineer Phil Dudderidge, rocked on to the junior market yesterday. After breaking out at 126p, shares crescendoed to 139p before easing back to close its debut day significantly up 10.5p at 136.50p. No need for a turnaround here, guitar fans! Read the market latest updated
five times a day at:
www.thisismoney.co.uk/markets