Sky CEO Riding on Strong HD Demand, Multi-Platform Strategy in New Zealand

Like a number of DTH operators, New Zealand-based Sky Televisions’s multi-platform strategy is in full swing. At the end of 2009, the company announced a deal to launch services to Vodafone customers. The agreement will allow Vodafone to bundle Sky content, mobile and fixed- line voice and Internet services as part of a quadruple-play service.
Sky is also seeing strong demand for its recently launched high-definiton (HD) services that the uptake of the service has been the fastest in the company’s history, said John Fellet, Sky’s CEO.

Via Satellite: While your company is taking a multi-platform approach, which area of service have you seen the greatest uptake happen?

Fellet: Out of everything we have ever done greatest uptake we have ever seen has been with the HD PVR. We just can’t get the boxes installed fast enough here. As soon as we get them in, they are gone. We had planned to launch on July 1, which is the start of our fiscal year, but we only launched the service in mid-August 2008. We targeted 80,000 HD subscribers by the end of July this year. In January, we already had close to 60,000 HD subscribers.
While early signs are good, we still have work to do to persuade content providers to put HD on the platform so we can simulcast the channels. But, there are issues with content suppliers. Someone like Discovery, who we have a good relationship with, will have an HD channel, but, they don’t want to simulcast it. We find one of the reasons for the high-take-up of movies and sports is that we simulcast.

Via Satellite: Is there a strategy to get more of your content on different platforms without owning them?

Fellet: We have taken a little bit of a different tack from BSkyB. They are a full telephony company now. We are being a content provider. We don’t offer things like telephony and Internet ourselves. The trouble is then I start to look more like a competitor than a partner with some of these people.

Via Satellite: What about IPTV? Is it a threat or opportunity to your company?

Fellet: We view IPTV much more an opportunity than we do a threat. We think for the foreseeable future, the Sky platform is the best way to reach content. However, if you want certain archived content, it will be difficult to do it with via satellite. They will want to access content via the Internet. We want to offer these other services that we think customers want.

Via Satellite: What are your growth predictions for the company this year?

Fellet: Sky hopes its efforts will lead to relatively strong subscriber growth in 2009, as the operator is targeting another 15,000 subscribers. We are at 47 percent penetration. We think we can knock a point off that penetration every year. That has been the pace we have been on. In early years, we were growing faster. There are 1.5 million homes, so gaining another 1 percent is 15,000 subscribers. We don’t see anything to stop us getting the same pay-TV penetration that you see in the United States.

Via Satellite: Has SkyTV faced any economic issues in the current climate?

Fellet: For us, the main issue is the New Zealand dollar, which buys 20 percent less content than it did a year ago. That is always an issue.

Latest News