I personally love the streaming services offered by the main broadcasters.
The commercial services - ITV Hub, All 4, Demand 5, and so on - contain advertising which pays for their service. However, there are barely any adverts (other than sponsorship stings) on the Sky versions of their services.
Does Sky compensate them for this? If not, other than distribution, what is their motive for offering their catch-up service via the Sky platform?
However, there are barely any adverts (other than sponsorship stings) on the Sky versions of their services.
I don’t think it stops at the Sky versions, I’ve had barely any adverts on all4 for nearly a year now. I watch the F1 highlights on the all4 website and I only ever get the sponsorship stings so I’m thinking whoever is supplying the adverts is having a hard time
what is their motive for offering their catch-up service via the Sky platform?
Sky has a huge install base from people who have the full package to people who are using it for the free-to-view channels so partly convince for the viewer but mostly because there ain’t no such thing as too much exposure!
Any of the streaming services on my LG TV don't have ads either. There are breaks and sponsorship stings but then back to the programme. Not complaining!
Don't use the Sky version but tends to be 4-6 ads on the Smart TV/Now TV apps, and probably 2-3 pre-roll ads too. I'd say C4 have less than ITV too. I guess the impact of an ad via an on demand service you can't fast forward is greater than on TV, so they get away with less.
ITV on Sky Catch-up has been advert free for as long as I can remember.
All4 on Sky isn't (or wasn't) the same as All4 on the website because there was a time where it was effectively a cut down version on programme availability for some reason.
Remember that on Sky you don't get access to Catch up at all unless you have an active subscription so the "no adverts" on ITV could be seen as a perk of your subscription (if you watch a lot of ITV that is).
If I'm not mistaken, the unintentional USP with using Sky is you can fast forward through the adverts and sponsorship stings. Much better than sitting through 9 adverts on All 4.
Doesn’t Sky download the shows to the hard drive, so you can easily fast forward.
Virgin boxes, especially older ones not sure on newer ones, were only offering “streaming”.
That's right. It's been a few years since I had Virgin but I assume little has changed. The gripe with Sky is you have to wait for a minute or so for enough of the programme to download so you can play it without interruption, but I think that's a small price to pay to have full navigation control.
I’ve always used the Sky catch up over the standalone TV players (particularly RTE’s awful player) for this very reason. For related reasons if I’ve to stream RTÉ One or RTE2 I’ll always use the Sky Q app - it doesn’t subject me to two minutes of ads every time I want to watch a live stream (and again if I want to change the channel, and again if the stream drops due to connectivity problems, as can often happen if you’re travelling).
Doesn’t Sky download the shows to the hard drive, so you can easily fast forward.
Virgin boxes, especially older ones not sure on newer ones, were only offering “streaming”.
That's right. It's been a few years since I had Virgin but I assume little has changed. The gripe with Sky is you have to wait for a minute or so for enough of the programme to download so you can play it without interruption, but I think that's a small price to pay to have full navigation control.
You don't "have to", you can hit play as soon as you like. The entry turns to "Available" once enough has come down to enable you to play all the way through without stopping. On today's 38Mbps connections the wait is only a few seconds.