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Sky / Discovery Dispute

Full scale war breaks out - Peace reached with 4.5hrs to go, (January 2017)

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DV
dvboy
DISCOVERY DECLINES TO COMMENT ON RUMOURED BT TIE-UP TO OFFER CHANNELS TO SKY HOUSEHOLDS
JANUARY 26, 2017- MARTIN HOSCIK
The UK arm of Discovery Networks has declined to comment on speculation that it’s considering partnering with BT to sell its channels directly to Sky households.


http://www.seenit.co.uk/could-bt-sell-discovery-and-eurosports-channels-to-sky-households/
Last edited by dvboy on 27 January 2017 3:24pm
HC
Hatton Cross
'Declined to comment'
Normally means "oh bugger, someone has leaked out what is going on to the press"

This may be a calculated manoeuvre by Discovery to get Sky back to the table.
With VM openly advertising no change to the channel line-up, thus suggesting existing Sky subscribers might consider adding to Sky's higher than expected churn rate - and now a rumoured tie-up with BT?
The lads over at Grant Way must be feeling the thumb screws by now.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
But remember: You have to give Sky 31 days notice to cancel and you pay a month in advance. So even if everybody on Twitter who says they're going to cancel will cancel on, say Feb 1st, they will still be Sky subscribers until the 3rd of March. So the potential churn rate figure rise is not that important at this stage. It may be later, but not immediately.

Anyway if things do change and Discovery and friends come back/stay on Sky, all those who cancelled may change their minds. So throughout February it is not a total lost cause for either side. Discovery maybe in the short term if they do disappear off the EPG.
:-(
A former member
Anyone seen this promo? GO TO 25 Second

TV
TV Times
Now this from SKY


http://www.sky.com/discoveringmore
:-(
A former member
Quote:

We have something for every customer. Drama, documentaries, entertainment, comedy, sports, movies and more.

We have worked really hard for more than a year to get a deal done for our customers with Discovery, so we are disappointed with their misleading claims and aggressive actions. We now feel it’s time to set the record straight. Because despite our differences, we love Discovery too.

We were prepared to pay a fair price for the Discovery and Eurosport channels and invest more in those channels to make them even better for our customers. We have offered hundreds of millions of pounds to Discovery, a $12bn American business, but that wasn’t enough. They asked the Sky Group to pay close to £1bn for their portfolio of channels, many of which are in decline.

Sadly, we have now had to prepare for Discovery to take their channels away from Sky customers, as they have threatened to do. It is Discovery’s choice to do this, not ours. We never left the negotiating table and they haven’t come back to it since they made their threats public this week.

Sky doesn’t boot channels off our platform. If Discovery don’t want their channels to disappear, as their public campaign suggests, they could have made arrangement to stay on Sky, including free to air with advertising funding or with their own subscription, but they’ve chosen not to do so.

Our commitment to our customers is this: We will spend every penny that we were going to pay to Discovery on more and better content that our customers value. This will come from sources around the globe and home grown shows and documentaries from the UK. We will continue to offer customers a huge range of content including hundreds of shows from The History Channel, National Geographic, PBS, Sky Arts and Sky Atlantic, along with more amazing sport on Sky Sports Mix, available to all our customers.

We hope our customers understand that we have been working on their behalf and will always do that. We thank them for their support.

RE
Rex
£1billion. I'll repeat it again, £1billion.

With Sky's finances restrained and the huge arbitrary amount of money that Discovery wants - I can see why they've decided not to renew it. This makes a new carriage deal all the more unlikely.
JF
JetixFann450
Quote:

We have something for every customer. Drama, documentaries, entertainment, comedy, sports, movies and more.

We have worked really hard for more than a year to get a deal done for our customers with Discovery, so we are disappointed with their misleading claims and aggressive actions. We now feel it’s time to set the record straight. Because despite our differences, we love Discovery too.

We were prepared to pay a fair price for the Discovery and Eurosport channels and invest more in those channels to make them even better for our customers. We have offered hundreds of millions of pounds to Discovery, a $12bn American business, but that wasn’t enough. They asked the Sky Group to pay close to £1bn for their portfolio of channels, many of which are in decline.

Sadly, we have now had to prepare for Discovery to take their channels away from Sky customers, as they have threatened to do. It is Discovery’s choice to do this, not ours. We never left the negotiating table and they haven’t come back to it since they made their threats public this week.

Sky doesn’t boot channels off our platform. If Discovery don’t want their channels to disappear, as their public campaign suggests, they could have made arrangement to stay on Sky, including free to air with advertising funding or with their own subscription, but they’ve chosen not to do so.

Our commitment to our customers is this: We will spend every penny that we were going to pay to Discovery on more and better content that our customers value. This will come from sources around the globe and home grown shows and documentaries from the UK. We will continue to offer customers a huge range of content including hundreds of shows from The History Channel, National Geographic, PBS, Sky Arts and Sky Atlantic, along with more amazing sport on Sky Sports Mix, available to all our customers.

We hope our customers understand that we have been working on their behalf and will always do that. We thank them for their support.



So wait, Discovery has been forcing Sky to pay them for their channels with their threats and Sky has nothing to do with it? Oooh, seems scummy for Discovery to do that.
BR
Brekkie
Wonder how many years that £1bn is over - as the headline figures it's way more than I thought it would be, but then if it's over 10 years I guess £100m a year isn't as much as it originally sounds, though I'd have thought with the explosion in pay-TV channels that advertising revenue contributed more to channel budgets than pay-TV revenue.

One thing this might quite conveniently do though is pave the way for Eurosport to become a stand alone subscription service, which I suspect is what Discovery really want.
BB
BBI45
Quote:
We have worked really hard for more than a year to get a deal done for our customers with Discovery, so we are disappointed with their misleading claims and aggressive actions. We now feel it’s time to set the record straight. Because despite our differences, we love Discovery too.

We were prepared to pay a fair price for the Discovery and Eurosport channels and invest more in those channels to make them even better for our customers. We have offered hundreds of millions of pounds to Discovery, a $12bn American business, but that wasn’t enough. They asked the Sky Group to pay close to £1bn for their portfolio of channels, many of which are in decline.

Sadly, we have now had to prepare for Discovery to take their channels away from Sky customers, as they have threatened to do. It is Discovery’s choice to do this, not ours. We never left the negotiating table and they haven’t come back to it since they made their threats public this week.

Sky doesn’t boot channels off our platform. If Discovery don’t want their channels to disappear, as their public campaign suggests, they could have made arrangement to stay on Sky, including free to air with advertising funding or with their own subscription, but they’ve chosen not to do so.

Our commitment to our customers is this: We will spend every penny that we were going to pay to Discovery on more and better content that our customers value. This will come from sources around the globe and home grown shows and documentaries from the UK. We will continue to offer customers a huge range of content including hundreds of shows from The History Channel, National Geographic, PBS, Sky Arts and Sky Atlantic, along with more amazing sport on Sky Sports Mix, available to all our customers.

We hope our customers understand that we have been working on their behalf and will always do that. We thank them for their support.


I'm not sure how much of this I am willing to believe. Ultimately, I don't think they will pump all the extra money into more programming. Me and my family don't watch that many subscription channels. However, the channels we do watch include: Discovery History, TLC & Animal Planet. Sky's message doesn't really help us and we now regret signing a 1 year contract. As soon as our contract expires, we will be reviewing our options as we pay £38 per month and don't really get our money's worth, especially not now.
:-(
A former member
Even if that deal is over 10 years, sky looking towards that 10 years period and i bet there believe its not worth it Sky already talked about having a service via the internet. Personnel I would kept my sky dish. Look at all the new services etc
HC
Hatton Cross
..or move and become part of the BT Sport subscription. - with the occasional event on BT Showcase.

Then they can then offer up BT Sports 1-3, ESPN, Eurosport 1 and 2 and Boxnation.
7 pay tv sports channels? That's exactly the same as Sky Sports.

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