htfreak Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 Just caught the news earlier about SCV increasing the price of their basic package by $4 beginning in July this year. The bigger shock is that the Sports channel will increase to a massive $25 in October. Starhub "WAN SHUI".
carhorn Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 darn! We need competitor. *hub overbid for the next few seasons EPL.
Lucifer Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 darn! We need competitor. *hub overbid for the next few seasons EPL. Brudder wut talking you man? It's precisely BECAUSE there is competitor aka SingTel IPTV which is why StarHub is forced to bid higher. More competition does not necessarily mean lower prices in the case where the supply itself is monopolistic.
yellowhandman Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 Brudder wut talking you man? It's precisely BECAUSE there is competitor aka SingTel IPTV which is why StarHub is forced to bid higher. More competition does not necessarily mean lower prices in the case where the supply itself is monopolistic. that is a really good point. same time last year, i think there was a similar debate on the cost of SCV and football coverage...but singaporeans don't realise how lucky we have been to get the amount and quality of EPL coverage we've been getting. for my part, i don't mind paying more, because that is the economic reality (as you have pointed out) of a bidding war having taken place. but i'll be extremely angry if starhub gives us substandard coverage. i hope the rumors that they are sub-selling the rights to ESPNStar, to do the actual packaging and coverage, is true. i would miss charlie... :P
vink Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 Does it mean for those currently under SH cable contract, die-die must must pay for the price increase for the sports channel? >:(
Guest jonlee Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 Well, u can always cancel the sports channel...
htfreak Posted June 11, 2007 Author Posted June 11, 2007 Not if you have taken up their 15% discount promo which ties you in for the whole year.
carhorn Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 It's not a matter of being stingy or relunctant to pay, 'can't afford it but still wan to watch' mindset or sth along that line. And we know what prices other countries are paying. http://www.astro.com.my/v5/getastro/price.asp (M'sia RM$) http://www.tvbpayvision.com/customer_service/service_plan_eng.pdf (HK$) These countries have more than one content operator. My beef here is that we can't have different content operators due to MDA regulations. It would be easy to construct a system of mechanism whereby content operators receive part of the fees while sub lease to others. In any case, my arguement is that MDA is trying to have its cake and eat it, by retaining exclusive content agreements with Starhub while encouraging Pay-TV competition (singtel, M1 (?)). I'm actually a little ambivalent on exclusivity or rather monopoliastic practices, it makes effective competition in the Singapore context really difficult. Bro Jonlee: U can say tt but tt defeats the purpose of a forum tt discuss issue, isn't it? I hope that's not going to be the case. regards
yellowhandman Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 i don't think you can reasonably make a straight country-to-country comparison of prices, given different cost of living, etc. for example, has anyone checked what UK football fans pay for their football coverage? at the end of the day, someone has to pay the 100k pounds per week salaries of premiership footballers - us, the football fans. i don't think it is SCV or MDA or anybody in Singapore who is to blame for this situation...it's just the popularity of the premiership, which naturally causes its price to go up. let's say there was a way to force content providers in singapore to share out EPL rights, so each content provider gets to telecast some of the games. now, obviously they are going to ensure that each gets a fair share of the big games. so then you'd have to subscribe to ALL content providers in order to watch as many games as you do today. is that going to be cheaper? there was a competition. starhub won. they had to pay big bucks to get the rights. as a business, they need to recover their costs and make some money. it's different if there's any proof at all that they are gouging consumers, i.e. that they are earning huge profits from charging exorbitant prices for EPL games. i haven't seen any...
murphys33 Posted June 11, 2007 Posted June 11, 2007 i think it is extremely unfair if they increase the prices even though we have signed up for a 1 year subscription. If this increase affects oly new sign ups, its fair. Otherwise, what is the point in locking into a 1 year contract. By the same principle, if the max online price drops, does that mean that our existing contracts get a reprice?
yellowhandman Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 i think it is extremely unfair if they increase the prices even though we have signed up for a 1 year subscription. If this increase affects oly new sign ups, its fair. Otherwise, what is the point in locking into a 1 year contract. By the same principle, if the max online price drops, does that mean that our existing contracts get a reprice? is it confirmed that those with existing contracts must start paying the new price immediately?
Doggie Howser Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 I guess it's just different principles at work... I am just amazed there is actually an initiative in Australia just for this! :) http://www.savemysport.com.au/ Q. What is the antisiphoning list? A: The antisiphoning list is a list of major sporting events that the Parliament of Australia has decided must be available for all Australians to see free of charge and cannot be “siphoned” off to pay TV where people are forced to pay to see them. Sports currently on the antisiphoning list include: Olympic Games Commonwealth Games Melbourne Cup Australian Rules Football Rugby League Football National Rugby League Premiership competition National Rugby League State of Origin Series Each international rugby league “test” match involving the senior Australian representative team Rugby Union Football Rugby World Cup tournament Each international “test” match involving the senior Australian representative team Cricket World Cup one day cricket Each “test” match involving the senior Australian representative team Each one day cricket match involving the senior Australian representative team Each one day cricket match involving the senior Australian representative team played as part of a series in which at least one match of the series is played in Australia English Football Association Cup final FIFA World Cup tournament held in 2006 FIFA World Cup tournament held in 2010 Australian Open Wimbledon French Open men’s and women’s singles quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals US Open men’s and women’s singles quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals Davis Cup all matches in each tie that an Australian representative team is involved Each international match involving the senior Australian representative team Australian Masters Australian Open US Masters British Open Formula 1 World Championship (Grand Prix) held in Australia Moto GP held in Australia V8 Supercar Championship Series (including the Bathurst 1000) Champ Car World Series (IndyCar) held in Australia Do you think we'll even get F1 Singapore leg for free? tankuku :(
htfreak Posted June 12, 2007 Author Posted June 12, 2007 We do get S-League on Free-To-Air TV mah. It's so good that no PayTV would want to even bother carrying it. ;D
scoobydoo Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 We do get S-League on Free-To-Air TV mah. It's so good that no PayTV would want to even bother carrying it. ;D Dont forget the $110 that we have to pay each year for all these world class entertainment from mediacorp. Now lets us start to reminisce about VR man.... ;D
Doggie Howser Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 Say what's the goal we set for ourselves to qualify for World Cup again? Sad isn't it, we actually had ONE referee who managed to qualify for the World Cup but we didn't get to see him in action on our free to air TV. Haiz...
armoury Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 Brudder wut talking you man? It's precisely BECAUSE there is competitor aka SingTel IPTV which is why StarHub is forced to bid higher. More competition does not necessarily mean lower prices in the case where the supply itself is monopolistic. Correct. I happen to know someone in Starhub who told me that they only just beat SingTel by a small margin, SingTel obviously bidding big to make EPL coverage the centerpiece of their IPTV service. So Lucifer is absolutely correct: since supply is a monopoly, competition didn't help. So don't blame Starhub, blame SingTel for pushing the price up. And IIRC it's the EPL itself that doesn't allow the carve-up of rights, you have to take the whole thing and can't sublet, I think. Except in England, where public outcry forced Gahmen there to insist that the EPL break up EPL coverage into packages which the various operators can separately bid on (e.g. two games each weekend over three packages, and the right to be first, second or third in choosing what game you want. Or something like that).
in1voice Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 BTW, anyone know when HD EPL is coming to Starhub? I wrote to them but they say still considering, which means may have to wait long time.
htfreak Posted June 13, 2007 Author Posted June 13, 2007 Looks like today's Straits Times has reported that EPL HD is confirmed to be coming for the next season. Starhub will release details about this next month once they have finalised their programming lineup. Hopefully this $25 covers the HD feed as well which will help to appease the folks here.
FookLai Posted June 13, 2007 Posted June 13, 2007 Looks like today's Straits Times has reported that EPL HD is confirmed to be coming for the next season. Starhub will release details about this next month once they have finalised their programming lineup. Hopefully this $25 covers the HD feed as well which will help to appease the folks here. Interesting!!! Btw, today "my paper" reported that "CASE" sent a letter to Starhub hoping Starhub to let those Cable Suscriber who is on contract to terminate the services without termination charge/penalty due to the price rises. "CASE" reveal that they have received 2 complaints from consumers so far for the price rises. They also sent a letter to MDA asking why would them allow Stahub to rise the price of the package. Btw, I am surprised when I saw 2 complaints to them only. If they read this forum, it is definately more than that! Fook Lai
karlie Posted June 13, 2007 Posted June 13, 2007 They should increase only the prices for the sport channels. Why should I bear the cost for those who like to watch 22 guys fighting (and a rigged fight, some more) over a ball?
HomeMovie Posted June 13, 2007 Posted June 13, 2007 They should increase only the prices for the sport channels. Why should I bear the cost for those who like to watch 22 guys fighting (and a rigged fight, some more) over a ball? agreed. but I'm a subscriber for sports channel, i agreed with you was that i dun watch tennis, golf and other sports live coverage. According to SH the increase is the broadcast rights of several sports had increased. So? they should split it out, and charge me few bucks for soccer channel, another few bucks for maybe motoring sports channel. Instead of lump it up and make me pay $25. I rememeber when I started at $8/- for sports channel. I got to watch EPL, La Liga, Seria A live coverage games. Even when it went up to $10. BUT when I paid $15/- now i only gets mostly EPL and 1 or 2 La Liga on Sunday. Which I think the balancing ratio is out. I'm quitting for the stupid $25/- just for EPL when it kicks in.
armoury Posted June 13, 2007 Posted June 13, 2007 They should increase only the prices for the sport channels. Why should I bear the cost for those who like to watch 22 guys fighting (and a rigged fight, some more) over a ball? I think Starhub is saying that the cost of all content has increased, hence the $4 increase on basic cable as well, since it hasn't gone up at all since SCV started (or rather, it started at $30 but for all basic channels with sports, then changed to the $20 for 3 groups scheme). The cost of EPL, on the other hand, is a significant increase and hence sports is increasing by $10. I do wonder, would it make sense for Starhub to put EPL on two separate channels, and 'all other sports' on another one or two channels? They could even bundle the EPL channels with Goal TV. I for one die-die would subscribe to EPL, but the only other sport I watch on either ESPN or StarSports is Formula 1, and even then not religiously, so if the 'other sports' channel(s) was too expensive I wouldn't bother with it. Unless ECL was on 'the other sports' channels too. Or how about "football channels" and "other sports channels"?
yellowhandman Posted June 13, 2007 Posted June 13, 2007 actually, i don't think the pick-the-sport-you-watch method of pricing would be advantageous...right now, people who don't watch EPL but watch tennis, golf, basketball or other sports are essentially subsidizing those of us who watch EPL, because they get a lot less bang for their buck. if SCV separated out EPL from the other sports and allowed you to subscribe only to EPL, they might end up losing money on the other sports channels because demand is lower. then they would either jack up the price of those channels (not a good idea, since that would affect demand even more), or increase the price of EPL channels to offset the loss on the other channels (more likely).
synthesis1624705793 Posted June 13, 2007 Posted June 13, 2007 .... I for one die-die would subscribe to EPL, but the only other sport I watch on either ESPN or StarSports is Formula 1, and even then not religiously, so if the 'other sports' channel(s) was too expensive I wouldn't bother with it. ... Man.. I only watch F1 and Moto GP. I subsidize you guys watching EPL. :'(
TYF Posted June 13, 2007 Posted June 13, 2007 Well, did call Starhub to voice my displeasure of the price hike. Also take the oppty to tell them that their HD sucks and they better buck up. In fact, this really gives me a ''wake up" call as I just realized that I don't tune to Football channel that often and only on the Big Match day. It's time to consolidate and reduce my cost....
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