Conferences continue to talk of customers preparing to churn out of their pay-TV subscriptions, but there is little evidence of this in the UK, writes Julian Clover.
The UK is officially a mature market or is it? A week ago the final analogue transmitter was switched off. But unlike the Nordics or Spain, where every quarter seems to bring more bad news for the established operators, the three main UK platforms just keep on increasing. This is not a market where people are cutting the cord.
In the most recent quarterly reports, made public over the last two weeks, BSkyB added 20,000 TV subscribers, BT Vision put on 21,000, Virgin added 52,200 paying TV customers (as opposed those bundled in with phone or broadband).
There have of course been changes over time, a new subscriber today is more likely to enter with a basic TV package than was the case ten years ago, though pay-TV operators seem confident of upselling them.
After years in the doldrums, UK cable finally has an offer to boast about, broadband speeds that are generally the highest available and a next generation TV product in TiVo. No longer is telephony the only game in town, though clearly a part of the mix.
Virgin’s advertisements are more confident than before and will get shown regularly on television, which hasn’t always been the case.
The Sky+ box has been reinvigorated by broadband connectivity. Sky too has a fibre product, although DSL is still the principal means.
Waiting in the wings is the BT Vision relaunch, powered by YouView, which may be the PSB-telco-led project’s path to glory. This before we even get into the free options of the DTT-only YouView, Freeview itself, Freesat with its new Freetime interface, and a plethora of other connected options.
So if it’s not cord cutting, that phrase so beloved of conferences, how about the more tame cord slicing? Has the consumer decided to reduce the services they subscribe too? Operators are always reticent about making public the details of the mix, but why would anyone upgrade to HD if they were about to cancel the sports?
Be it through Sky+ HD or TiVo, consumers are upgrading to HD, and those services are the very ones that engender customer loyalty.
Surely something has to give. While YouView may reinvigorate BT, remember TalkTalk is also a partner; the proposed sports channel may have its work cut out. Despite what the hierarchy might want is to believe two Premier League packages does not make a channel and its major achievement may be to either drive up the cost of sports rights, and subscriptions, and take out a channel along the way.
