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Anonymous User
Not applicable

Black Friday 2020 Prediction

Here is my prediction for NOW TV’s Black Friday offerings - NOTHING

 

Comcast’s interest in NOW TV was nothing more than their need to asset strip it for their Peacock product.

 

Offering discounts is in direct conflict with the need to make it unpalatable compared to Sky. Once all the vouchers have timed out it will be overpriced except only for those who wish to dip in and out.

61 REPLIES 61
Anonymous User
Not applicable
No no no no no, they boasted to me about the fantastic broadband offer they have at the moment... forgetting that most people will already be in a contract with a provider already... idiot marketing department.
SweetBlitz
Expert 3

as many people will have already left and signed up for other services.

 

I interchange between Netflix, Prime and Now TV pretty much constantly anyway.  Even if you leave (at no cost) you can join back anytime you like.  The major benefit of Now for me is I only have it when I want to watch certain movies or shows.   There is next to no overlap.  It’s not as if I sign up with Netflix and I can watch Curb Your Enthusiasm.

 

Also in all likelihood, if people do leave they will get an offer they can’t refuse via email in the next few weeks.

GrumpyDonkey
Scholar 2

Strangely, Sky are actually offering pretty godd deals for a change.

So why NowTv can't offer something similar is rather odd.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Comcast own both Sky and NOW TV competing product but consider Sky to be the strategic product and so needs to do what it can to increase its customer base. NOW TV, on the other hand, is not part of Comcast strategy and therefore must make a profit when compared to its Sky sibling or die.

 

Ultimately, I see no future for NOW TV - even in the near future.

 

Comcast thinks that TV services come with a large box. For example, there is no need for the Sky Q mini to be nothing more than a dongle or a Chromecast’d app. That is direct conflict to most customer’s requirements to put a thin TV on the wall with no ugly wiring but what do they know.

Anonymous User
Not applicable
Clearly Comcast know what they’re doing, they’ve had years of experience in the USA and are gonna bring all that skill to the UK market... good luck... so long and thanks for all the fish...

From Wikipedia... not my opinion or anything to do with me, I only put it on for information.

Comcast has been criticized for multiple reasons; its customer satisfaction often ranks among the lowest in the cable industry.[15][16] In addition, Comcast has violated net neutrality practices in the past, and, despite Comcast's commitment to a narrow definition of net neutrality,[17] critics advocate a definition which precludes any distinction between Comcast's private network services and the rest of the Internet.[18] Critics also point out a lack of competition in the vast majority of Comcast's service area; there is limited competition among cable providers.[19] Furthermore, given Comcast's negotiating power as a large ISP, some suspect that Comcast could leverage paid peering agreements to unfairly influence end-user connection speeds. Its ownership of both content production (in NBCUniversal) and content distribution (as an ISP) has raised antitrust concerns. These issues, in addition to others, led to Comcast being dubbed "The Worst Company in America" by The Consumerist in 2010 and 2014.[20][21]
Saint1976
Elite 3

@Anonymous User quite the opposite. Comcast have a strategy to move away from cable services (in the US) having launched a streaming service that brings all their content together in a single service via a small streaming box. It's free to Xinfinity internet subscribers and like NowTV it's available to other users with differing tiers of cost.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacock_(streaming_service)

 

Sky's own CEO, in a recent interview, also sees people moving away from satellite services to streaming. 

 

"DARROCH: First, you have to separate technology and how we distribute what we do from the actual product that we sell. When Sky was launched, we had analog TV, which was replaced by digital multichannel TV, which in turn was replaced by high-definition TV. Atop that came the concept of on-demand content, initially served through hard disks in boxes, then through server farms that we owned, and then eventually through the cloud-based virtual servers we have today. And then, there was a transition from a pure broadcast platform to a hybrid platform where we combine satellite and the broadband return pathway. Today, you can get Sky purely over a streamed platform. So we’re on a journey through time, rather than moving toward a destination.

 

Second, when you have a customer focus, streaming becomes irrefutable because you can see the trends. Streaming today is as much about how people choose to lead their lives as it is about technology platforms and infrastructure. Both of those things are important.

 

The reality is today, fewer of our customers than ever before consume their content purely through satellite. But 15 years from now, people will still be consuming content by satellite. It will just be a smaller number. I think leaders can race too quickly into some of these changes because they haven’t been thoughtful enough about the right pace of change.

 

We don’t spend too much time being overly precise on predicting specific outcomes. We want to understand the trends, take a wide view to make sure that we can see them in the broadest context, and then figure out how to step into them. And that becomes liberating, because the question is not, do we change? It’s how, at what rate, and where?"

 

NowTV is here to stay (and grow) as it meets changes in people's habits on how they consume Sky's content. Sky/Comcast won't care how you consume their content as long as you do and you pay for it.

SweetBlitz
Expert 3

@Saint1976  I think much the same that satellite/cable will move more towards streaming models as time moves on.  Where satellite/cable will have an advantage is live broadcasting like news and sport, but those aside I expect the channel model to mostly disappear except on the likes of Freeview/Freesat.

 

Channel hopping will be replaced by programme hopping.  By and large this is how we watch TV in our home.  Most programmes we watch are via iPlayer, All 4, Now Tv, Prime and Netflix.

Saint1976
Elite 3

@SweetBlitz agreed. Gone are the days where you'd plan your evening around the start time of a particular show or worse still setting the timer on a recording device because show times conflicted.

 

Apart from sports content I rarely use any live services. With streaming I choose what I want to watch when I want to watch it and I'm confident that's the way most people are moving. Even my elderly parents are moving to on demand content.

 

What needs to happen (from my perspective) is an improvement in the functionality of the device I'm getting my content from. While the stick/boxes are suitable to a degree, they still lack in some key features;

 

Ethernet connection

4k content (without a separate additional payment)

Better sound options

Live reminders (I might be watching an on demand show killing time before a football match and want a warning it's about to start)

Skip intro

Flexibility to delete 'continue watching'.

 

 

 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Saint1976 I didn’t say that streaming was not the future, it absolutely is but NOW TV is not.

 

Peacock is not NOW TV. It is synonymous to Shaun The Sheep’s  jumper. It is ‘B’ grade programming taken away from the Xfinity platform and given back to them via a free app subscription. Why would any Xfinity customer want that. But it does allow Comcast to disrupt the Netflix and Prime market. NOW TV probably will turn into Peacock but it won’t be the same thing at all.

 

Sky will move their customers to streaming via either Sky X or by allowing the Sky Q boxes to run with the  satellite dish unplugged.

 

 

Saint1976
Elite 3

@Anonymous User 

 

Comcast thinks that TV services come with a large box - obviously not if their streaming service is offered via apps or a small 4k device.

 

I never said NowTV and Peacock are the same product, simply that they operate the same business model. Offering slimmed down content via an app or streaming device with no contract.

 

So here's the conundrum for Sky. If they see the future of streaming through Sky X then they'd have to migrate 22 million users across 4 countries into that platform. Based on what happened with the white boxes you will not get 22 million people purchasing a new device to maintain their current 'dip in dip out' service (€50 in Austria) or subscribe to a years contract to get a discounted box (€20 in Austria with a 12 month contract). Both options defeat the point of the current model. NowTV is an established brand so no need to discontinue it in favour of a brand synonymous with higher prices and contracts. All advances made with the NowTV format of non-contract would be lost and Sky would be setting their streaming service back 5+ years.

 

Even their own head of product development has said that he sees Sky X sitting between their current offerings of full Sky via satellite and NowTV but thinks their current model is "very powerful". 

 

I see NowTV remaining but it maybe that in the future there's the option of an enhanced service accessed through a rebranded Sky Q mini/Sky X box while maintaining the service through the current line up of devices/apps.