Ann: Sky Investor Day presentation - 29 June 2021, page-29

Oh yes, they have done all sorts of Sky Nation surveys and looked at other reports of what people say they want.

It's a load of baloney quite frankly, and Vodafone have made this same mistake with Vodafone TV. When they launched it at the end of 2017 they trumpeted it as a revolutionary way to watch TV. Freeview, Sky, apps...all in one place. Kiss the satellite dish goodbye, everything streamed to the box. Generous cloud storage, 3 Day catch up... all neat features and wonderful.

But....

They made the mistake of drawing bunk conclusions from survey data. Surveys which usually ask loaded questions. They have essentially built their STB around linear TV because the 'data' said heaps of people still love that. So what they have ended up with is a slightly more modern MySKY with apps.

I got hold of their Product Owner to share my feedback and he wouldn't have a bar of it. As far as he was concerned, the surveys say people like linear so that is that. But depending on what you ask, people in 2016 were likely to say linear is A-OK because that was still how the majority of TV was delivered (and therefore all they knew). Hell, the majority of TV is still delivered that way in 2021. People will usually default to what they know and are used to if you ask them...but that is not to say that it is what they want or need...

It is no surprise that VTV has largely been a flop from what I can see. Customers certainly didn't flood the Vodafone Contact Centre to sign up to broadband or mobile plans to get their hands on this precious new life-changing box. Vodafone then started selling it as a standalone product so you didn't have to be a Vodafone customer...well, they aren't exactly flying off the shelves at Noel Leeming.

And because the UI is centred around live linear TV instead of having an On Demand focus, the screens become cluttered and difficult to navigate. There are other major UX issues on the box...and I think the issues exist because they were not looking at the box with an OnDemand focus when they were collaborating with Sky to develop the NZ product. It is hard to seamlessly pick up where you left off on a series etc.

Epic fail as far as I am concerned.

Will a new Sky STB be better than VTV? Look, it almost certainly will (it is a low bar to get over). But just because a survey says x% of the population are happy using a STB does not actually mean that there is a need for Sky to build a new one.

Majority of people over 50 will be happy with MySky until they cark it. For the rest of the population...if they want a STB to stream their content they can already buy a Vodafone TV, Apple TV, Smartvu, PS4, Nvidia Shield etc. The rest are happy using Chromecast or Firestick.

And I think it is extra horse shit that they cancelled CiSCO IV in 2018. Martin said the future was streaming apps and I agreed with him - which was why I was as philosophical about the $40M in CISCO costs that we flushed down the toilet when the project was canned. Now they are having another crack at a different platform. Sophie gave some mealy mouth answer about cancelling IV because it was over budget and late, not fit for purpose (which I highly doubt) etc...but now they have absolutely got it sorted with a different provider and Sky ALWAYS wanted a new STB anyway.

What a load of crap.

Best case (for my back pocket) is that I am completely wrong about all of this and the new STB pushes high paying subs through the roof, I make millions of dollars on my shares and retire before 40.

But somehow, I don't think I am wrong about this.