Spark Sport has the cricket

[kenj]

News releases this morning!

Spark Sports now has Cricket broadcast rights for 6 years.

SKYTV shares fall!

My thoughts...….

Spark, you are making it too complicated. I tried your channel out but after a few days of trying to watch the tennis and Rally cars, I gave up. Half the time it wouldn't hook back up after, say I paused it to make a coffee etc and sometimes just wouldnt connect at all. This was a month before the Rugby World Cup started and I have Fibre connected and a compatible Panasonic TV. I am a rugby follower but just watching the available games on Freeview TV1 Never ever have a problem with streaming SkyGo!

SKYTV, you blew it when you never listened to your customers over the years. We all had to pay for the rubbish that we didn't want. You know how to present sport and leave Spark Sport for dead.... But, you DIDN'T LISTEN TO US!!

Ken

[wainuitech]

Yep, SKY must of thought that they were the only players in the game and could more or less do what they wanted, ignore their customers.

Now while I dont promote Spark, they will (maybe) eventually sort out the problems much the same way as the huge balls up that happened in Australia.

Sky need to change with the times and sort out their services.

[wratterus]

The new CEO at Sky is trying his hardest, and has made some awesome changes since he's been there (remove HD ticket fee, re-jig pricing in a more sensible way, SkySportNow...) but he's really been given a hospital pass by old chap Fellet who was greedy when he had a monopoly and was not at all forward thinking. He should have been investing the massive profits into streaming services years ago instead of bonuses but has left the company in a right state (IMO)

Obviously some have had issues with Spark Sport - I'm finding it fantastic. They are working extremely hard with it. The fragmentation of services is not good for the end users, but if you asked a few years ago, everyone hated Sky and would have loved some competition.

This is what competition looks like in today's market whether people like it or not. Spark have already forced Sky to improve their offerings dramatically. The problem now is the rights get shared around...but if you bought a SSN sub & Spark Sports sub, you are still better off than you would have been with Sky's old pricing, although Spark Sport will almost certainly have to go up in price at some stage. I expect Spark are losing money on the RWC - will be interesting to see their books at EOFY.

[kenj]

No doubt I will end up with both. SWMBO loves the netball which is one of the reasons for having Sky. If I want the cricket, I will just have to suck it up and pay Spark

Ken

[piroska]

Spark have already forced Sky to improve their offerings dramatically..

Have they?
We have SKy. We mainly watch docos, but some fiction on occasion.
I have tried Netflix and can never find any of the series I want on it (US only) and what I have tried sucks.
It's like the place for all the bad stuff....

Upped the SKy sub a while back to add movies (not so much) and Soho...that was for the particular series I wanted to see.

Can't see how Spark has changed any of that.
We don't watch sport here.

[wratterus]

Sorry, I should have specified their sport offerings.

[Zippity]

"Must have....."

[1101]

Sky is like Kodak
Thats the most apt quote Ive seen

Its an old business model thats now doomed to fail
The 1950's image of the family sitting around watching TV is fast disappearing .
Fewer & fewer now no longer watch much on old school TV's , they watch what they want on their PC , notebook or phone . I havnt turned on my TV in over 4 months .

Aside from that, I have to wonder why NZ Cricket thought it would be a good idea to split the market, forcing cricket fans to sign up to 2 providers . Thats hardly the way
to increase the NZ cricket fanbase.
Perhaps with Sky's $607M losses , Sky couldnt afford to get into a bidding war for rugby & cricket ?

[piroska]

Sky is like Kodak


Its an old business model thats now doomed to fail
The 1950's image of the family sitting around watching TV is fast disappearing .
?

Probably right. I'd say TVS are doomed.
People can watch on PCs, tablets, phones.....

Pity (as in an article I read yesterday) it said that several subs will be the norm, cause of the **** offerings among them.

[Beav]

Personally can't stand watching on a phone, or even laptop. Not much point in HD on a postage stamp. I watch next to nothing of the NZ tv offerings - mostly Netflix, downloads, or via a VPN on MiBox.