Participant Obersvations 8/8/18 - The End of Foxtel Now?

A real blow to my television consumption patterns this week, with the announcement that Foxtel may phase out their Foxtel Now streaming service, in favour of skinny bundle, stand-alone sport and entertainment streaming services.

This sucks, because I get sport and entertainment in the one package now, and I have some concerns that I'll get the same level of content as I do now at the same price and the same convenience if I have to subscribe to numerous skinny bundles.

For example, the sports bundle has been reported to be around $20-25 a month. If the entertainment bundle is the same, plus any HD add-ons, it could easily go past my current subscription of $54 a month.

It was revealed in Mediaweek today that survey data is believed to be behind the decision to go this way, in particular these two graphs from Roy Morgan and Telsyte:

From Roy Morgan: 

From Telsyte:

The Roy Morgan data shows Foxtel is the only subscription TV service with negative growth from 2017-2018.

The Telsyte data shows 54% annual growth in SVD subscriptions from 2017-2018, and the report also suggests 100% growth in the SVOD market by 2022.

Clearly, Foxtel want to tap into the SVOD growth market, as their existing subscription model is stagnant at best.

I understand this move, but I always thought the skinny bundles (Project Matian and Project Jupiter) would happen in addition to Foxtel Now, but I guess the writing is on the wall with Foxtel Now.

It's also been widely reported that new Foxtel-Fox Sports CEO Patrick Delany is not enamoured with the Foxtel Now brand or product, that was launced by his predecessor Peter Tonagh.

This is something of a sunk cost now for Foxtel, because they also launched a Foxtel Now STU to accompany the product - what will happen with those units if Foxtel Now is phased out? Will it support the new skinny bundles? I guess they could update the software to support it, but I'm not fully across if they could do that.

I was so looking forward to watching the cricket with Foxtel Now, but it's clear Foxtel want to use their new cricket rights to launch the new skinny products, so I'm not sure what will happen. 

The cricket season is only over a month away, so whatever happens will happen soon I would think, especially if Foxtel want to leverage their existing customers over to the new service in time for the cricket.