Sky - Comcast takeover complete

James Murdoch has gone.

From today, Sky is part of @comcast, one of the biggest media companies in the world. There are exciting times ahead for us as part of a global business. Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch talks to us about how we can embrace the future. pic.twitter.com/PJWTnyTDUH

— Sky Corporate (@SkyCorporate) October 9, 2018

Before SkyQ, a former Sky customer would already have an STB that would simply become a 'Freesat From Sky' box. If you cancel SkyQ, they take back the box as it's on loan.

I’m on mobile and having trouble linking to an article reminding Comcast of Sky News funding and independence. As far as I knew I thought those restrictions weren’t in place when Comcast took over but solely for Fox. Now for Sky News to be independent would it have to be operated as a seperate entity apart and collaborating little with 30 Rock or by idependent do they mean non partisan?

Comcast has guaranteed the same amount of funding for Sky News for 10 years in line with what was expected of Fox.

They may use the Xfinity Brand for their consumer branding. But its not unlikely the NBC Peacock will appear somewhere somehow in the Sky branding, even if its not used on air.

The new Comcast Center in Philly was just opened little while ago.

They just opened the neighbouring Comcast Technology Center next door this week apparently.

Its the 2 tall buildings on the left. The Technology Center is the building with the thick spire. They are now the tallest buildings in Philly.

newscastudio has an article about the corporate studio they recently opened in the Tech Centre building.
https://www.newscaststudio.com/2018/10/09/comcast-technology-center-studio-c/

If you dont know anything about Philadelphia beside the Fresh Prince Of BelAir, its quite a historic and old city. Not know of for an expansive or tall skyline but more for its terraced house and historic sites.

I haven't seen anything that suggests Comcast spent $40 billion on Sky to enable the NBC brand to reach a global audience.

There were essentially two reasons for Comcast's bid

1. The potential harm to the Comcast business of a significant global Disney media empire.
and 2. The quirks of the Takeover code which enabled them to acquire Sky relatively more rapidly than buying alternative assets globally.

These two factors together with the declared willingness of the major Shareholder in Sky (21CF) to dispose were far too tempting and thus the $40Bn tag was seen by them as reasonable. The response of the markets in the fundraising exercise to pay for this seems confirmatory to this.

The deal was done. The additional global brand presence that results is useful but not key.

(meanwhile I've tinkered around)

Sky is an established brand in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Austria

You are out of your mind if you think they are going to demolish the brand equity they’ve just bought in countries they have no previous history of operating in, by rebranding it or adding a peacock (which has almost zero brand value outside the US)

If anything, I suspect they’ll bring NowTV to the US and continue to expand under the Sky brand in Europe.

I hope they do not make the mistake so many American companies make when they move into Europe: we know best, it worked in America so it must work here. That is a one way route to disaster. Europe is a fiendishly complex market - Comcast will do best if they listen to Sky about how to move forward, not the other way around.

Well they already put peacock on Euronews with no qualms about it. So never say never. I wouldnt think NowTv brand would be bought to the US as it has no brand value here as Xfinity does, they already offer a similar steaming service under their XfinityStreaming brand. And Roku, Chromecast, AppleTv already have the streaming device market clinched. So I highly doubt they would even try to launch a new product under a name that has zero brand value in North America. Unlike in Europe there has been some exposure to the NBC brand via popular programming and CNBC etc.

Most cable companies in North America arent known for their devices (like Sky is known SkyPlus, SkyQ). Xfinity launched their X1 service a few years back, they may incorporate some Sky tech into their existing service under their Xfinity brand.

Comcast has spent millions developing the Xfinity brand name and pushing the consumer away from using Comcast as the service provider name, so they are hardly going to introduce any other brand name such as NowTv.
The fact is a big percentage of channel brands are US brands. Despite some failures that may have occurred, they continue flourish so I dont think US companies are as stupid as you might think.

According to Forbes
Top Brands By Country:


https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/#tab:rank

I think the peacock with EuroNews was adding NBC’s credibility to EuroNews perhaps to get more people tuning in and also to show a rebrand.