I just want to point out that the article in the Herald I referenced has been updated since I posted.
It did not include anything from Arie Dekker initially - it just mentioned Sky right at the end with commentary about Chorus.
Mr Keall has talked to a Financial Analyst (Arie Dekker) which is good - that way his comments are not purely his personal opinion.
Arie's comments and my response (for any who give a damn).
"There could also be strong regulatory pushback," - No I disagree. There will potentially be some strong opposition from competitors. Though I don't really see how Spark could put through a submission with as much teeth as last time. Perhaps Vodafone might have more to say and lead the charge. Sky TV is already considered a telco so the question would be whether or not Sky being able to expand into telco would lessen competition - I think the Comcom would have to scrutinise this very closely but given how rapidly things have changed over the past 5 years it remains my view that, on the balance of probabilities, a deal could be structured in a way that would get approval.
"While they won't quite have Vodafone's heft, the combined Orcon and 2degrees will be "a significant player", Dekker said". - Well, 2D will be a decent sized player, but they are still a distant third in the telco stakes. $1.2B combined revenue is way behind Spark and Vodafone. Even if they merged with Sky and revenue jumped to around $2B it would still be small relative to the other two.
"And while there's now more competition in the content space than there was when "VodaSky" was blocked five years ago, "Spark has not made strong progress," Dekker said." - Well, Spark have not released subscription numbers - and probably because their subs are far lower than they hoped they would be. So, from that perspecive, sure Spark Sport has not been successful. But they have still won plenty of content deals - big deals too. Sky did manage to win EPL back, but Spark still have NZ Cricket, F1 etc...whether Spark Sport have priced/bundled their service in a way that is attractive to the masses (and therefore generated large sub numbers) is irrelevent imo. What is relevant is that winning content deals for live sport is very much a competitive endeavour.
Anyway, that is my two cents! All very interesting regardless.
Hopefully Mr Keall reaches out to 2D and potentially Sky with some questions. Not that they would say much!
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