McBain
Player Valuation: £80m
From NewsCorp
LET’S HAVE A THREESOME
There’s a term being thrown around that’s supposed to encompass the future of TV: Triple-play. The three prongs refer to broadband internet, home phone and pay TV.
The idea is that telcos will lure customers into their universe and maximise profit from every single consumer. In the US, because of its high pay TV penetration rate, the triple-play model is already widespread with the likes of Comcast and Time-Warner dominating the landscape.
In Australia, Foxtel, which is half-owned by Telstra, has already thrown its hat in the ring while Optus and other ISPs including iiNet, Internode and Dodo offers Fetch TV in its triple-play package.
The potential game-changer for triple-play in 2016 will be the shifting of broadcast rights of the English Premier League from Foxtel to Optus. Optus has released no details on how it plans to distribute or broadcast the EPL games but one imagines it could involve some combination of Fetch TV and/or an app-based add-on subscription available to Optus customers.
Optus’s successful bid for the EPL rights signals the telco’s strong intention to throw its weight and money behind a triple-play future. Especially now that Netflix has significantly shifted Australian consumer behaviour on paying for TV content.
Mr Lorson said: “2015 was the year of the SVOD player, characterised by a lot of players competing for growth on a small margin basis. The market is now transitioning to a focus on telco bundling where the margins are a lot larger, as are the stakes. Telcos are a logical winner in the next generation of entertainment services and ownership of iconic assets will become critical.
“As such, the telcos are best equipped to invest, grow and thrive in this new world and clearly have an appetite to subsidise entertainment to achieve bigger objectives.”
However, Mr Allen said the move by Optus and the EPL wasn’t necessarily in the best interest of football fans. He said it reminded him of the A-League’s original deal with Foxtel, that by fencing it off onto a smaller platform, it limited the accessibility and popularity of the game.
“It’s great to have [the EPL] exclusively but few customers are going to want to stay up until 2am to watch the game,” he said. “The rest of us want it on demand or be able to record and play it back. Optus doesn’t have that technology currently and it would cost a pretty penny to build. In which case, if it is building it, Optus will need more than just the EPL.
“The EPL doesn’t care about the ratings, they can just take the money and run. Most other sports aren’t that detached to audiences — no domestic sport can do a deal like this.
“Sure, when the NBN finally gets to your front door or your closest corner, all of these discussions will be much easier and we will see all sorts of entrants and some of them may very well own sporting rights.”
LET’S HAVE A THREESOME
There’s a term being thrown around that’s supposed to encompass the future of TV: Triple-play. The three prongs refer to broadband internet, home phone and pay TV.
The idea is that telcos will lure customers into their universe and maximise profit from every single consumer. In the US, because of its high pay TV penetration rate, the triple-play model is already widespread with the likes of Comcast and Time-Warner dominating the landscape.
In Australia, Foxtel, which is half-owned by Telstra, has already thrown its hat in the ring while Optus and other ISPs including iiNet, Internode and Dodo offers Fetch TV in its triple-play package.
The potential game-changer for triple-play in 2016 will be the shifting of broadcast rights of the English Premier League from Foxtel to Optus. Optus has released no details on how it plans to distribute or broadcast the EPL games but one imagines it could involve some combination of Fetch TV and/or an app-based add-on subscription available to Optus customers.
Optus’s successful bid for the EPL rights signals the telco’s strong intention to throw its weight and money behind a triple-play future. Especially now that Netflix has significantly shifted Australian consumer behaviour on paying for TV content.
Mr Lorson said: “2015 was the year of the SVOD player, characterised by a lot of players competing for growth on a small margin basis. The market is now transitioning to a focus on telco bundling where the margins are a lot larger, as are the stakes. Telcos are a logical winner in the next generation of entertainment services and ownership of iconic assets will become critical.
“As such, the telcos are best equipped to invest, grow and thrive in this new world and clearly have an appetite to subsidise entertainment to achieve bigger objectives.”
However, Mr Allen said the move by Optus and the EPL wasn’t necessarily in the best interest of football fans. He said it reminded him of the A-League’s original deal with Foxtel, that by fencing it off onto a smaller platform, it limited the accessibility and popularity of the game.
“It’s great to have [the EPL] exclusively but few customers are going to want to stay up until 2am to watch the game,” he said. “The rest of us want it on demand or be able to record and play it back. Optus doesn’t have that technology currently and it would cost a pretty penny to build. In which case, if it is building it, Optus will need more than just the EPL.
“The EPL doesn’t care about the ratings, they can just take the money and run. Most other sports aren’t that detached to audiences — no domestic sport can do a deal like this.
“Sure, when the NBN finally gets to your front door or your closest corner, all of these discussions will be much easier and we will see all sorts of entrants and some of them may very well own sporting rights.”
