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Sky - Comcast takeover complete

Comcast to compulsorily acquire all shares not already held. (September 2018)

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RK
Rkolsen

Why do you prefer Comcast?
You do know Rupert will get alot of money for this.. If Comcast reputation is anything, I think alot of people will leave them since there have a choice, like Sky, cable etc

Comcast does have an awful reputation for their cable/Internet service, but that's in the US where it is a very different market and regulatory system than the US. A lot of places there have no competition for broadband, they won't be able to get away with a bad service here.


The shareholders of Sky will get a lot of money, but that's how investment works (when it's done right of course) . As for the Murdoch family, they're getting a lot of money whatever the outcome. What they get from selling Sky will be small change compared with what they'll get from selling Fox


The thing is in the US people drop cable and satellite because of the rising costs (demanded by channels). Comcast has vastly improved their customer service in the past few years and supplemented it with innovative products not seen in other cable or satellite boxes (the cable boxes UI haven’t been touched since then of the century - likely to allow any cable company to use any box) . The X1 Technology they license out to other providers that aren’t in their footprint. And yes in many areas the local county would only allow one cable company so for ages you’d have Comcast, Dish or DirecTV. Then Verizon Fios and AT&T with started installing fiber in the same areas under the guise I believe of upgrading their network but in reality allowing them to enter the TV game. With that being said I know a lot of people who were upset with Comcast moved to Verizon and then switched back.

From a employee perspective what I’ve heard about Comcast is positive (they’ve invested a ton of money into NBC nationally and locally and boosted moral) both in the NBCU unit and the corporate units. However the sales people and customer service are worked hard to upsell people. But unfortunately I think that’s common in customer service.

Now I don’t know how Sky’s corporate morale is but if it’s anything like NBCUniversal was (poor) prior to buy out things will improve.

Edit : I don’t know if you read US industry blogs such as FTVLive Fox isn’t a good owner and ABC is cutting jobs.
LL
London Lite Founding member
I'm friends with a Comcast customer in South Carolina and they're happy with the service, he's a former AT&T engineer too!
CI
cityprod
All the plans were in place for Disney to take C21Fox which would have stabilised content going forwards. Now all of these are shredded

Surely they still still are, it's not just going to include Sky?


This is the complicating factor here, the whole Disney/Fox situation was settled before Comcast decided to move in on Sky which was a definite spoiler tactic.

How much it changes the calculation for Disney is currently unknown at this stage, but you have to imagine they aren't happy about it, and will be examing all avenues and how the removal of Sky would change things. You might not think it would change it much, but imagine what a global powerhouse the combined Sky Sports/ESPN would have been.
LL
Larry the Loafer

Why do you prefer Comcast?


Because I see absolutely no upside to the Murdoch empire having full control over Sky, regardless whether or not they'd have to sell Sky News.
Brekkie, TROGGLES and Spencer gave kudos
JE
Jeffmister
This is a good deal for Sky News, With Euronews covering mainland Europe and Sky News covering the UK and Ireland, this will vastly improve news coverage of the continent for NBC News and MSNBC viewers in North America.

Likewise, Sky News will be given a massive boost by being able to utilize the resources of NBC News, Euronews and also CNBC


Sky's new relationship with NBC should be fascinating on a Sports basis.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in this regard. For example, NBC might have Sky talent contribute to their US Premier League coverage
LL
London Lite Founding member

Likewise, Sky News will be given a massive boost by being able to utilize the resources of NBC News, Euronews and also CNBC


As Sky Sports News have branded bulletins, it may be viable to bring back biz bulletins during the day as a CNBC update on Sky News.

It also raises the question of the viability of the Sky News City studio at News UK, it may be better for Sky's City output to move in with CNBC at Fleet Place.

Ian King Live would also benefit from being able to use CNBC's reporters in London and New York.
JA
JAS84
All the plans were in place for Disney to take C21Fox which would have stabilised content going forwards. Now all of these are shredded

Surely they still still are, it's not just going to include Sky?


This is the complicating factor here, the whole Disney/Fox situation was settled before Comcast decided to move in on Sky which was a definite spoiler tactic.

How much it changes the calculation for Disney is currently unknown at this stage, but you have to imagine they aren't happy about it, and will be examing all avenues and how the removal of Sky would change things. You might not think it would change it much, but imagine what a global powerhouse the combined Sky Sports/ESPN would have been.
I'm sure that TV and movie content for their upcoming streaming service, and the X-Men and Fantastic Four movie rights, were bigger reasons for Disney buying Fox than Sky Sports was.
DV
DVB Cornwall
Sky will be in Comcast's hands by the end of Next Month.

Commenting on the auction and Comcast Bidco’s increased offer, Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer of Comcast said:
“This is a great day for Comcast. Sky is a wonderful company with a great platform,
tremendous brand, and accomplished management team. This acquisition will allow us to
quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase our customer base and expand
internationally. We couldn’t be more excited by the opportunities in front of us. We now
encourage Sky shareholders to accept our offer, which we look forward to completing
before the end of October 2018.”
IS
Inspector Sands

Because I see absolutely no upside to the Murdoch empire having full control over Sky, regardless whether or not they'd have to sell Sky News.

But they (Fox) would only have full ownership of Sky for a short period, just until Disney took over the whole lot

The 'Murdoch empire' has always had control over Sky
RD
rdd Founding member

Likewise, Sky News will be given a massive boost by being able to utilize the resources of NBC News, Euronews and also CNBC


As Sky Sports News have branded bulletins, it may be viable to bring back biz bulletins during the day as a CNBC update on Sky News.

It also raises the question of the viability of the Sky News City studio at News UK, it may be better for Sky's City output to move in with CNBC at Fleet Place.

Ian King Live would also benefit from being able to use CNBC's reporters in London and New York.


If they can find any in London, given CNBC Europe has, since it was fully taken over by NBC Universal, gone from a fully fledged stand alone operation to one that clocks off for the day at 10:00am (after airing a measly four hours of programming) and relays output from its US namesake the rest of the day.

I’m not saying Sky (or its content side) is going to suffer the same death by a thousand cuts CNBC did. It does however bring into question the plans NBC has at Euronews, particularly for English language studio programmes. Surely there will now a case be made by the soon-to-be-US owners that NBC does not need to be running two 24 hour English language general news channels in Europe?

I wonder how long indeed, that Sky lasts as a vertically integrated carriage and content business. Surely one of the first decisions Comcast will make is that the content side should report into NBC and the carriage side into the US carriage operation (Comcast/Xfinity?). On the carriage side there’s big opportunities for Sky to influence Xfinity given it’s ownership of its own technology platform and manufacturing through what was once Amstrad. I’ve limited experience of US cable TV but what I’ve seen their technology is a lot less advanced than ours; that may be due to how dominant TiVo had been in the DVR market there.
JA
JAS84
I won't be surprised if the current Sky logo is for the chop - to be replaced by the NBC peacock, which is also used as Comcast's corporate logo now.
ST
Stuart
JAS84 posted:
I won't be surprised if the current Sky logo is for the chop - to be replaced by the NBC peacock, which is also used as Comcast's corporate logo now.

I think Sky has quite a strong brand identity, which they've finally harmonised across their European markets. I can't see any advantage in slapping the NBC peacock on everything. It doesn't have the same resonance here as it does in the US.

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