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Sky Box office being shutdown Jan 4th

Sky to shutdown Box Office channels after 20 years (December 2016)

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RE
Rex
picard posted:
Sky were giving away HD boxes. I assume they are going to or they are currently replacing these old non HD boxes.

There can't be many left. There are apparently over 10 million HD boxes in use, how many customers does Sky have. Shocked

About 11 million as the most popular pay TV service in the UK, only being pipped by Freeview if we expand it beyond pay TV. Can't be that much SD only boxes left.



Steve in Pudsey posted:
You say minute number of users, but remember Sky Store only works on HD boxes. Isn't the fact that there are still plenty of old pre Sky+ boxes around cited as a limitation on more channels launching on the EPG?

I guess there is a point where paying to provide the service costs more than the revenue it is taking though.

I did mean a small number of users - but my wording might be exaggerating it than I thought it would.

Your second point - I'm sure that they're losing money on Box Office than even squeezing out revenue - whereas the Sky Store has higher revenue made compared to Box Office.
PI
picard
10 million figures are from 2014, however I have not seen the report from 2016. I suspect it is higher. Once Sky get rid of these old boxes, they can add more channels if I remember rightly? old boxes can't handle anymore.
ST
Stuart
picard posted:
10 million figures are from 2014, however I have not seen the report from 2016. I suspect it is higher. Once Sky get rid of these old boxes, they can add more channels if I remember rightly? old boxes can't handle anymore.

They've been offering the free replacement STBs for over a year, so everyone with an SD-only box has had plenty of time to upgrade.


There may be many thousands of SD-only STBs out there being used as Freesat receivers, but that's not going to be of any concern to Sky.

I'm very surprised that in the closure promo, they refer to it as "Sky Movies Box Office", after going through a high profile rebrand in summer to Sky Cinema.
JO
Joe
Stuart posted:
I'm very surprised that in the closure promo, they refer to it as "Sky Movies Box Office", after going through a high profile rebrand in summer to Sky Cinema.

I imagine that's quite deliberate. Why would they want to show off closing a service operating under a new brand? Better to demonstrate how antiquated it is by using an old one.
PI
picard
How long before the movies channel close, 10 years? Laughing
MA
Markymark
picard posted:
10 million figures are from 2014, however I have not seen the report from 2016. I suspect it is higher. Once Sky get rid of these old boxes, they can add more channels if I remember rightly? old boxes can't handle anymore.


I think they can, but become really sluggish. They still conform to basic DVB-S spec, (there's an EU directive to ensure that, which is why they have the manually tuned, 'Other Channels' feature). I still have my 1998 box in
use for radio stations, still works, though the rubber on the back of the remote went all 'sticky', chemical reaction apparently, they all go that way...
NW
nwtv2003
picard posted:
How long before the movies channel close, 10 years? Laughing


The Cinema channels generate advertising revenue and seem to do ok for ratings. I doubt they'll be closing anytime soon. They'd be mad to remove a channel such as Premiere as it highlights the new films, and Disney as that seems to be the most watched out of the lot.
PI
picard
Markymark posted:
picard posted:
10 million figures are from 2014, however I have not seen the report from 2016. I suspect it is higher. Once Sky get rid of these old boxes, they can add more channels if I remember rightly? old boxes can't handle anymore.


I think they can, but become really sluggish. They still conform to basic DVB-S spec, (there's an EU directive to ensure that, which is why they have the manually tuned, 'Other Channels' feature). I still have my 1998 box in
use for radio stations, still works, though the rubber on the back of the remote went all 'sticky', chemical reaction apparently, they all go that way...


Is that the black Pace?

http://img.class.posot.es/en_gb/2015/08/14/PACE-SKY-DIGITAL-RECEIVER-in-Portsmouth-20150814081023.jpg

That's the one I had until I moved to Sky Plus. it was dog slow, took about 6 seconds to load a page of channels.
PI
picard
nwtv2003 posted:
picard posted:
How long before the movies channel close, 10 years? Laughing


The Cinema channels generate advertising revenue and seem to do ok for ratings. I doubt they'll be closing anytime soon. They'd be mad to remove a channel such as Premiere as it highlights the new films, and Disney as that seems to be the most watched out of the lot.


Don't they stick ad's on the demand content now?

I have to ask why would I watch a channel when I can watch something on demand straight away.
LL
London Lite Founding member
nwtv2003 posted:
picard posted:
How long before the movies channel close, 10 years? Laughing


The Cinema channels generate advertising revenue and seem to do ok for ratings. I doubt they'll be closing anytime soon. They'd be mad to remove a channel such as Premiere as it highlights the new films, and Disney as that seems to be the most watched out of the lot.


Not to mention that Sky are able to distribute those channels to other providers such as Virgin, BT and TalkTalk.
MY
MY83
picard posted:
I have to ask why would I watch a channel when I can watch something on demand straight away.


On demand requires a strong, reliable high speed broadband connection, especially for higher quality content going forward like 4K / UHD stuff. Believe it or not, not everyone in the country has that yet, thanks to our government's chronic lack of investment in infrastructure and the private sector's reluctance to do anything that may cut into their profit margins. There is still a place for OTA linear TV in the wider world, even if there isn't in your little closeted bubble.
PI
picard
MY83 posted:
picard posted:
I have to ask why would I watch a channel when I can watch something on demand straight away.


On demand requires a strong, reliable high speed broadband connection, especially for higher quality content going forward like 4K / UHD stuff. Believe it or not, not everyone in the country has that yet, thanks to our government's chronic lack of investment in infrastructure and the private sector's reluctance to do anything that may cut into their profit margins. There is still a place for OTA linear TV in the wider world, even if there isn't in your little closeted bubble .



Zipper

Sorry I spoke.

My original post did state in 10 years time.

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