Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

BlueSkyDreams · 01-09-2023 10:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121054551#Comment_121054551

Depends on the pub. plenty in Dublin are very busy for football games.

Have you ever been to the Living Room or the Camden for instance. Generally very busy and both are huge places.

But smaller pubs in rural areas especially, i agree it doesnt make sense.

briany · 01-09-2023 10:56am

Now TV are also relaxed about sharing. For example, my father users my Now TV login to watch the occasional match without an issue.

Relaxed for now, probably. I'm sure they'd try to pull a Netflix when they can't figure out another way to increase their market saturation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The funny thing about this story, apart from its regularity, is that it's actually an inadvertent ad for dodgy boxes.

"All the sports? All the channels? For how much a year??! Sign me up!!"

They're not going after ordinary users because there are far too many. They can't go after many providers as they're overseas. All that leaves is people chancing their arm selling the boxes.

To be honest, I think that things like illegal streaming and downloading are the only thing which keeps media prices down. The only reason you can listen to music on Spotify for a flat monthly rate is because of Napster and its variants forcing the hand of the music industry. Same for torrents and Netflix.

You don't even need a dodgy box or pay money to get a lot of the stuff, but you'll have to be prepared to search around a lot more. People are prepared to pay money for the convenience of not having to do all of that, and will give their coin to the lowest bidder whether they be legal or not so much.

Shoog · 01-09-2023 10:56am

BBC iPlayer, the channel four player, rte player are all examples of legal and freely available IPTV. You need the right VPN to watch BBC.

Butson · 01-09-2023 10:57am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121055114#Comment_121055114

You'd wonder how Sky and BT couldn't get into a room and "agree" on a price and then bid. I think in the last round of rights there was a fear that Netflix, Facebook would bid but its clear now they wont and have no interest.

Added to this the explosion of IPTV in the last 3/4 years, I would be very surprised if there isn't a significant drop in what Sky and BT (now TNT) pay next year when the rights come up.

seekenee · 01-09-2023 11:00am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121054875#Comment_121054875

You can put the All4 app on a firestick, I couldn't get it directly onto my Tv, but it works on the Firestick plugged into the TV.

All4 will also work on desktop/iPad/phone - it won't let you stream/mirror from those devices to the TV though.

Fr Tod Umptious · 01-09-2023 11:00am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121055130#Comment_121055130

Firstly if you check the Bargain Alerts board here you will get codes for Sky and TNT that will cost you much less than €39 p/m for those on Now TV. Closer to €25 or less I reckon.

As for you wanting just to watch your own teams then tear up the premier league structure and start again.

The whole idea of the premier league was that the top 20 teams did not want to share revenue with the other 72, so they broke away and did their own TV deal, managed their own revenues and shared it between the 20.

Now if you go to a situation where one can chose just to watch an individual teams games then the whole thing is on it's head.

It will soon be come clear that the demand for the big clubs will be greater than that for the smaller clubs, so the price of the big clubs games will be more expensive, and the big clubs will get more revenue as a result, thus widening the gap between them and the smaller clubs.

And if you had such a situation the cost for the consumer for a sub for the big clubs would never be "cheap", because it would always be a premium product.

Fr Tod Umptious · 01-09-2023 11:09am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121055187#Comment_121055187

I believe the currently rights deal was just rolled over from the previous one because it came due during COVID and there was a lot of uncertainty.

But in that original deal there was a reduction in the value of the rights, and I think one batch of rights went unsold for a while.

The reason being is that a few years before COVID BT got on the Sky billing platform, i.e. a customer could ring up Sky and get Sports Extra (BT/TNT) on their existing Sky account/subscription.

A customer did not have to setup a separate account/subscription with BT.

This meant that BT stopped competing directly with Sky for customers, and thus both stopped trying to outbid each other for rights.

Oscar_Madison · 01-09-2023 11:19am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121055200#Comment_121055200

Ah good to know- thanks

mariaalice · 01-09-2023 1:20pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121055181#Comment_121055181

That's why I went for ibox, 10 a month, yes I'm sure I could it get all of it free by various means it's a hassle so happy to pay 10 a month.

Sleepy · 01-09-2023 1:34pm

I've an old PC plugged into the back of the telly that we use a bluetooth keyboard as the "remote" for and make use of most of the streaming platforms. All4 is far and away the most used of the services.

Recently decided it'd be worth the fiver a month or so to avoid the ads on it... crazily, the ad-free premium version is only available in the UK!

mariaalice · 01-09-2023 2:02pm

I had a look ibox has 60 channels more than enough. I know sky sports is the big one for a lot of individuals though. We also have Netflix and Disney as a tag on from the children. I wouldn't have the time to watch it all, work part-time, cook, clean, garden keep up with everything meet my family meet my friends, go hiking read books stay sane.

Glebee · 01-09-2023 3:06pm

I have an iptv sub.

I pay for Netflix

I pay for Disney

I pay for Now

I pay for Vidio

I pay for VPN

I pay TV licensee

Do I feel guilty.. not one little bit.

briany · 01-09-2023 5:14pm

I just torrent everything t'fúúck.

Nigzcurran · 01-09-2023 6:29pm

Yep as above, I pay a fair bit of money on a load of legit services, I also pay for a dodgy iptv stream for the absolute sole purpose of being guaranteed to be able to watch man utd no matter what channel they are on (unfortunately!)

shmeee · 01-09-2023 9:08pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121055154#Comment_121055154

Yes, the term "dodgy box" is used but the day of this dodgy box is well gone. As said on this thread.

I see people going out buying an android box or Firestick instead of just installing IP TV ______ app onto a smart TV directly from the app store on the TV. Always check TV first.

You can install this app and have a login within 5 minutes.

We see these news article's every September. And nothing will happen or change as long as the price and access of sport on TV remains the same.

Why did people stop pirating music? Because Spotify came in and offered it for a fair value at the time. Do you think the PL/Sky/TNT will do that? Not a chance in hell. Other countries can get access to all premier League games for €10 a month legally, I'd have no issue paying such a fee.

Fr Tod Umptious · 01-09-2023 11:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121057947#Comment_121057947

Why did people stop pirating music? Because Spotify came in and offered it for a fair value at the time. Do you think the PL/Sky/TNT will do that? Not a chance in hell. Other countries can get access to all premier League games for €10 a month legally, I'd have no issue paying such a fee

How come people can't get their heads around rights and why rights are more valuable in one region over another ?

It's €10 for every game in some places because it's not a popular product and can't support a higher price.

Take the US for example, it's probably dirt cheap there on some NBC app, but that's because the games are on in the early hours and soccer is still not a top sport in America.

Compare it to baseball, you have the MLB app in the US which costs $150 for a season but you can't watch the games of your local team because that team has a tv contract with a local station, so you have to buy the TV sub of that local station if you want to watch the local team.

Most NFL games are free on TV, but if your local team doesn't sell out a home game 72 hours before kickoff it won't be on TV in the home market.

In the UK and Ireland the premier league is a premium product and will always be expensive relative to territories where it's not a premium product.

StupidLikeAFox · 01-09-2023 11:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121055114#Comment_121055114

Ah will you stop. Clubs are awash with money - there is zero chance that increasing subs from sky sports will make the wealth trickle down to the lowest paid workers in the stadium, it will only enrich the shareholders and the players

Fr Tod Umptious · 02-09-2023 6:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121058567#Comment_121058567

Either I'm very poor at making my point or you are very poor at comprehension, because I'm not saying anything about increasing subs.

What I'm saying is that if the TV decided to pay less for the rights (because they were losing money to streaming) it would trickle down and effect the lowest paid workers, on a bad way.

By the way I think Sky's actual answer to the threat of illegal IPTV is Now TV.

It's relatively cheap with multiple discounts available, and it's subscription free.

We have Sky TV basic in this house and since we got Now TV a few years ago have never upgraded to Sky Sports for any period of time, we just get a Now TV discount offer every so often.

jmcc · 02-09-2023 1:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121058524#Comment_121058524

Because people are generally unaware of the way that programme broadcast rights are sold. This has been a major problem for the movie and TV industry since broadcast satellite TV launched in the 1980s. (It used to be discussed in some depth at industry seminars back then.) The Internet has completely screwed the old broadcast rights model. As for the dodgyboxes, it is funny to see the technology journalists acting like they have a clue about the technology of piracy and its economics while just recycling press releases.

Regards...jmcc

Wanderer78 · 02-09-2023 1:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121058856#Comment_121058856

....now is actually also being used by illegal providers, so, happy days.....

alzer100 · 02-09-2023 2:59pm

It's Premier League time again and at the moment Sky's problem is with the POTENTIAL revenue that the illegal IPTV providers steal from them. When I state potential I mean what they could be earning over what they actually are.

I was once a customer of Sky paying a huge premium and I can recall the bidding war between News Corporation and Comcast to acquire Sky. Comcast eventually won by offering a greater share price. Of course the cost of buying Sky was passed onto the customer. Anytime I received correspondence from Sky, the communication always began with "We are committed to providing you with the highest standard of programming and premium content... But always always ending with "Your monthly subscription will be increasing...

Not only did the entrance of Comcast affect the subscription price but it also affected programming as NBC/Universal are also subsidiaries of Comcast, so Sky's programming content by default began to lean heavily towards programming from NBC/Universal. This is also evident from the output of their movie channels as most of the movie content is sourced from Universal. They obviously get this material at reduced rates but charge their customers a premium.

My point being is that it is very simple (and of course everything is easy when you know how) to set up a subscription with an illegal IPTV service provider, install the app, install a VPN and experience more of a variety of channels (particularly sports, movies and PPV events) than Sky and others are capable of offering at a ridiculously low price.

Getting back to my first point, I think illegal IPTV providers will become more of a problem for Sky and others as time goes on and people become naturally more tech savvy and I think it's got them scared tbh.