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chai
Scholar 3

Sky Sports themed channels coming to NOW TV?

Sky Sports to replace numbered channels and slash prices in revamp

 

Broadcaster to launch themed channels for football, golf and cricket, with cheapest package costing £18 a month

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/27/sky-sports-channels-prices-football-golf-cricket

 

Coming to NOW TV?

 

 

83 REPLIES 83
Anonymous User
Not applicable


@chai wrote:
Sky Sports to replace numbered channels and slash prices in revamp

 

Broadcaster to launch themed channels for football, golf and cricket, with cheapest package costing £18 a month

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/27/sky-sports-channels-prices-football-golf-cricket

 

Coming to NOW TV?

 


I hope so.  Wil stop the F1 fans grumbling about subsiding the football. 🙂  Interestingly at the end of teh article "Sky said that it will launch a broadband-delivered TV service next year".  What that means to Now TV, I don't kno.

 

Should end up with 

 

  • Sky Formula One
  • Sky Football One
  • Sky Football Two
  • Sky Golf
  • Sky Cricket
  • Sky Sports Arena - other content including rugby and tennis.
  • Sky Sports Mix

Better start using up my day and week passes...

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Sky football 1

Sky Football2

 

£18 each. 

 

They have just put up Sky Sports on Now TV to £36 or am I being stupid. Lets be honest most people want the football

SeeMoreDigital
Legend 5
Legend 5

I've just looked on my account and the current Sports prices are as follows: -

 

Sports costs.PNG

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I have read that the pricing will be something like this:

 

1 channel £18
1 each extra channel £5
All channels £28

 

This would be a nightmare for Now passes so suspect the day/week/month passes will be for all channels, hopefullly including Mix if it still exists.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User wrote:

...suspect the day/week/month passes will be for all channels, hopefullly including Mix if it still exists.


@Anonymous User I agree.  I can't see Now changing the model for day/week passes and unlikely there would be a mix and match of monthly passes.  Possible they could have single channel monthly passes alongside having all the channels.  However I see issues with that approach if I have a monthly football pass, but want to use a day pass for GAA on another channel.  Like you I think they will leave it as all channels.

 

Mix will still be there going forward.  Should be on Now TV as part of Entertainment and/or Sports.  Well I hope so.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

Surely they could do any kind of mix and match system?  Isn't mix and match a core ethos of Now TV?  SO I see no reason why they can't offer the individual themmed channels on a day, week and monthly pass basis.  It should also undercut the full Sky subscription price just as their packs do now.  Has anyone from Sky/Now TV actually bothered to respond here???

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User wrote:

Surely they could do any kind of mix and match system?  Isn't mix and match a core ethos of Now TV?  SO I see no reason why they can't offer the individual themmed channels on a day, week and monthly pass basis.  It should also undercut the full Sky subscription price just as their packs do now.  Has anyone from Sky/Now TV actually bothered to respond here???


If they offered what Sky offered on the day/week/month pass they would need 126 different combinations.   Also I don't think there would be any incentive for Now to offer different prices for the day and week passes.  The day pass would be about £5.50 one channel, £6 two channels and £6.50 three channels.  With the week pass it would be £9.50/£10.00/£10.50 respectively.  Why bother implementing such complexity which would increase costs with so little reward?   Not much of a business case.

 

The £33.99 monthly pass undercuts the cheapest Sky one channel offering by £6 (£22 base pack + £18 single channel). There are numerous offers on Now Sports that make it even cheaper.    

 

This single channel marketing is brilliant.  It gives the impression of cutting prices yet the reality is that Now, Virgin and Talk Talk subscribers can all pay less for all the sports than Sky customers would pay for just one sports channel.  Also Sky offer all the channels for just £20/month if you commit to 18 months anyway, so for many the real saving would be just £2/month.

 

We'd all like cheaper sports, but I don't think Now providing this mix and match will make things any cheaper.  I don't think it will make much odds for Sky subscribers either.  They raised the cost of the base pack by £2 recently and will add a £1 here and there (something Now TV cannot do)  to give the illusion that the sports channels are cheaper.

stammie1609
Expert

@Anonymous User wrote:

@Anonymous User wrote:

Surely they could do any kind of mix and match system?  Isn't mix and match a core ethos of Now TV?  SO I see no reason why they can't offer the individual themmed channels on a day, week and monthly pass basis.  It should also undercut the full Sky subscription price just as their packs do now.  Has anyone from Sky/Now TV actually bothered to respond here???


If they offered what Sky offered on the day/week/month pass they would need 126 different combinations.   Also I don't think there would be any incentive for Now to offer different prices for the day and week passes.  The day pass would be about £5.50 one channel, £6 two channels and £6.50 three channels.  With the week pass it would be £9.50/£10.00/£10.50 respectively.  Why bother implementing such complexity which would increase costs with so little reward?   Not much of a business case.

 

The £33.99 monthly pass undercuts the cheapest Sky one channel offering by £6 (£22 base pack + £18 single channel). There are numerous offers on Now Sports that make it even cheaper.    

 

This single channel marketing is brilliant.  It gives the impression of cutting prices yet the reality is that Now, Virgin and Talk Talk subscribers can all pay less for all the sports than Sky customers would pay for just one sports channel.  Also Sky offer all the channels for just £20/month if you commit to 18 months anyway, so for many the real saving would be just £2/month.

 

We'd all like cheaper sports, but I don't think Now providing this mix and match will make things any cheaper.  I don't think it will make much odds for Sky subscribers either.  They raised the cost of the base pack by £2 recently and will add a £1 here and there (something Now TV cannot do)  to give the illusion that the sports channels are cheaper.


I wouldn't argue with most of your points, especially with the day and week passes where things would become far too complicated.

However I think Sky have missed a trick by not offering monthly passes at the reduced rates for the individual channels.

I live in a predominantly Virgin Media area and if Now TV would fix the damn picture freezing issue I know several people who would switch their sports sub from VM to Now TV.

Additionaly if they offered the themed channels as individual or bundled prices I know many more who'd switch from paying VM to paying Sky directly

Anonymous User
Not applicable
stammie1609 wrote:

However I think Sky have missed a trick by not offering monthly passes at the reduced rates for the individual channels.

If they had an option to just get one channel for say £25 would it attract subscribers? That would be £9 off full price as per the Sky offering.  Now whilst offering six options isn't so bad, having the two channel offering (@ say £29)  is another 15 options and the three channel option (@£32) makes it an extra 20 so 42 in all including the every channel option.

 

And then what if someone with a monthly subscription for one channel suddenly wanted a day pass to watch another sport.  The Now TV provisioning and billing system would probably go into meltdown.

 

In my opinion internet services operate best with fewer options and NO channels.  Netflix only has one pass with three service levels.  Amazon just the one.  I am ignoring Amazon individual channel subscriptions.

 

Personally I would be happy with more curated service ala Netflix/Amazon.  On there I watch Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Lemony Snicket, Man in the High Castle and any movie I find of interest.  I don't find the channel I find the show.  Now TV could simply scrap the channel concept and just allow people to select the shows (in my case Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Westworld), films and events they want.  The events could even allow you to go back to the start like the BBC iPlayer beta.

 

I think the concept of a channel will disappear in the not too distant future and I think that would be a good thing.  One of the things I dislike about Now for Game of the Day and Match Choice is having to wait until 2am for the game I want to watch to appear on Sky Sports 1 (now Premier League).    As the content is available it should simply appear.

 

I suspect the future will be more along the lines of GAA Go and Tennis TV and the other specialist sports providers and may even get to the point where you have to have individual subscriptions to watch a particular club.   And it will cost more doing it this way.

 

But that's just my opinion!