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James said while a Sky-Virgin tie-up would be “unhelpful” for BT, it would be “incredibly problematic” for altnets with ambitious full-fibre plans because it would take away their chances of ever poaching Sky’s block of six million subscribers.
Claire said she expected that hundreds of thousands of new customers would join Sky and highlighted the mobile phone-like payment plan as a radical move that could open up the broadcaster to a new audience. “This is like the iPhone. It’s that kind of moment."
Julian said "Sky is planning a massive marketing campaign for Sky Glass over the next three months, which takes us to Christmas, and Sky will be keen to see this launch succeed, so no doubt it’ll encourage its existing customers to upgrade wherever possible. That said, although this is a huge product launch, Sky doesn’t really need to rush to switch its customers over from satellite."
He added "Given the typical replacement cycle for a TV set is over 5 years (and perhaps up to 8 or 10), if someone has bought a brand new set in the last year or two then it might be a while before they wish to splash out on another. As a result, there are many years left for satellites."
Joseph said “Facebook would be in a much worse position from a demographic standpoint if they didn't have Instagram."
He added “Even if you're a teenager, there's still limited time. And every minute you spend on TikTok or playing Fortnite is a minute that you're not on Facebook or on Instagram."
Julian said “Although broadcast channels and streaming services alike saw a big jump in their audience numbers at the start of the pandemic, the streaming services are the ones who have held onto these gains."
Press reports that Sky is in advanced talks to co-invest in Virgin Media O2’s upgrade of its cable network to full fibre are something of a surprise, with a host of issues for both parties to carefully consider
The muted deal would be somewhat negative for BT (although limited by Sky’s c.15% market share in VMO2 areas and regulatory protections/upsides). It is, however, a stark reminder of the precarious economics of alternative networks such as CityFibre
Whether this makes VMO2 more likely to extend its network further is a more critical issue, certainly for BT
James said there will come a point when the fixed cost of satellite deployment outweighs the income from customers, but that was still “many years away”.
“There is a good example in Spain where Telefonica – the BT of Spain – had an IPTV service. It merged with Canal Plus’s Spanish satellite TV service in 2015. It brought across all the content and immediately shifted the focus to IPTV. After they merged it was about 37pc satellite. But five years later, satellite still has an 11pc share with around 400,000 customers.”
"Certainly the fault is with Telecom Italia,” says François, who thinks that the streaming snags are solvable in the long run.
“It’s just that [at present] it doesn’t look good, commercial wise marketing wise,” Godard adds, noting that “when you have technology problems, people don’t rush to buy your product.”
As well as presenting quality entertainment, it’s in the BBC’s remit to expose its audience to a broad range of content. “If personalisation or recommendations are making people's access to any content difficult,” says Tom Harrington ”and therefore [limiting their exposure to] new ideas, programmes that are socially important ... the BBC is failing at one of its core jobs.”