Sky is launching Now TV, a £10 box that lets users watch on-demand services with a subscription, as the broadcaster looks to take on rivals in the growing web TV market. Now TV provides access channels including iPlayter, Sky Sports and Sky Movies, though there are many notable absences including Netflix, Lovefilm, ITV Player and […]
Sky is launching Now TV, a £10 box that lets users watch on-demand services with a subscription, as the broadcaster looks to take on rivals in the growing web TV market.
Now TV provides access channels including iPlayter, Sky Sports and Sky Movies, though there are many notable absences including Netflix, Lovefilm, ITV Player and 4oD.
Now TV will also offer access to web services such as Facebook and Spotify, but users will still have to pay to access various Sky channels – Sky Movies will cost £8.99 per month for three months (£15 after) and Sky Sports Day Pass is still £9.99 for 24 hours.
The new device pus Sky in direct competition with the £299 YouView box – a joint venture between BT, TalkTalk, the BBC, ITV, and Channesl 4 and 5 that offers on-demand TV without subscription.
The launch of Sky’s Now TV follows Google’s own budget streaming device, Chromecast.
The launch of Now TV accompanies Sky’s latest earning report, which showed full-year revenues rise by 7% to £7.24bn with operating profits of £1.33bn, up 9%. Despite this shares in the company fell by 2 per cent in early morning trading in London this Friday.
Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: “We expect the consumer environment to remain challenging over the coming 12 months.
As well as the shift in viewing habits towards streaming and on-demand services, Sky will also be challenged by the launch of BT Sport on August 1. Sky have previously dominated the market for pay-TV sport but BT will be offering its service free to broadband subscribers.
BT Sport will offer viewers 38 Premier League football games a season, and the company says that more than 500,000 households had signed up to the new channel, though most of these were existing customers.
Like BT, Sky is hoping to further draw together internet and TV services, and from September will start offering a Wi-Fi capable Sky+HD box as standard, as well as new wireless adaptors to upgrade older hardware.
Analysis
Dominic Baliszewski, digital TV expert at broadbandchoices.co.uk commented: “Sky’s newly launched NOW TV box is far cheaper than other alternatives in the market at just a one-off £9.99 payment and offers access to premium sports and movies content without the burden of a long term contract.
“However the devil is in the detail and customers need to look at exactly what they will get for their money. The NOW TV box will not allow viewers to record shows, and although they will be able to download apps from the Channel Store, the choice here will be determined by Sky. Customers who want an all singing, all dancing TV service may be better off opting for a smart TV device that lets them download whatever app they want. Furthermore, if you already have an Playstation, YouView, Xbox or Roku box you won’t need the NOW TV box as you will already be able to access Now TV on your TV set.
“That being said, flexibility and low cost is what makes the NOW TV box so appealing.Customers who don’t want to fork out for a full-on premium sports or movies TV subscription will be able to dip in and out when they want and remain in full control of the amount of money they are spending. Households who are on broadband deals with a limited download allowance should be careful as any content viewed through your NOW TV box will count towards your monthly data usage. Switch to a broadband deal with truly unlimited data to avoid being stung with excess data charges, which can cost £5 per extra 5GB in some cases (to put this into context, just one 2 hour HD movie can use 3GB of data).”
