SKY TV shares will be hit by bank charges.

[alecmac18]

As the Leo Sayer song goes........When the money runs out what will we do? Turn around and start a new.....?

 

Christmas has been and gone and the traditional time of year for banks to slam people of OD charges begins.

 

So what do people do when they are faced with a bill of £90 that they HAVE to pay (cause the bank strips it from their acount).

 

Surprisingly (or unsurisingly) a lot of them will cancel the SKY TV direct debit. You see you have to pay council tax, water, electric, and rent/mortgage. But you dont have to pay your SKY bill. And a lot of people get fed up when they miss a payment by a day and a £30 bill turns into a £120 bill. Regular TV is still on and there are all those DVD's to watch that you got at Christmas.

 

I've lost count of the amount of people that have said they are going to be canceling SKY in the new year.

 

Expect to see SKY TV shares fall over the next few months as contracts (and ad revenue) dries up.

 

Murdochs press may be tentatively on the side of the banks at the moment but that will soon change when they realise that bank charges are canabalising their revenue streams. Ahhh sweet irony.

[car2403]

I can't see Sky's profits being negatively impacted by customers leaving their service - surely this is something that happens everyday anyway and the amount of new customers just means they are swapping one for another, IMHO.

 

Do you have an axe to grind here, or is this just an observation?

[alecmac18]

lol - Do I have an axe to grind? Do you read my posts? Of course. But its just an observation. But one I think will be proved correct quite soon. SKY TV subs represent easily disposable discretionary spending and is just the kind of service that is the first to go in an economic downturn. Bank charges are hardly likely to help matters.

[Guest Wild Billy]

[alecmac18]

Hmmm.

 

Watch it slide.

 

NWS - News Corporation (CHESS) - Google Finance

 

 

(but nice work on the image)

[Enron]

Yep, cancelled Sky and haven't regretted it at all - though you will get loads of paperwork through the door trying to tempt you back, along with 5-6 phonecalls.

 

At the end of the day do you really want to be giving Rupert Murdoch all that money - especially when he's supporting Hilary Clinton for US president.

[alecmac18]

Think they got the message? lol.......That one one of the better reports I've seen and at least it showed the video.

 

Future Of High Street Banking In Balance In High Court |Sky News|Business

[alecmac18]

A little bit of background to this........

 

Years ago I worked for a very large insurance broker in the life insurance dept. One of the first things my sales manager told me was that there were two bills that people cancelled first when they fell on hard times. Life Insurance and the SKY TV bill, in that order.

 

The life insurance provided a benefit - but no one thinks that they are going to pop their clogs tomorrow. If you cancel the SKY bill you lose the nice selection of channels but hey - at least you still got the Beeb and ITV.

 

The point he was making was that both services came after bills like the mortgage, gas, water, council tax etc...both life cover and SKY are nice to have but ultimately they will go the way of the dodo if your budget is squeezed.

 

The point of the whole excercise was to ensure that we reminded customers that having life cover in place was actually more important than having SKY TV - so that if they did get squeezed one month they wouldnt immediately think of canceling the life cover.

 

Thing is.....these days.....plenty of people don't have life cover.....so the first thing to go in hard times WILL be the SKY bill. And I firmly believe that bank charges will have a direct impact on subscriber numbers in the current year if they are allowed to continue......its not even that people won't want to watch.....they will........but a £35 charge is the same as the family package.......and something will have to give.

[alecmac18]

A nice little article in The Sunday Times today.....

 

5 ways the banks fleece us.

 

Five ways the banks fleece us - Times Online

 

aint that the truth...

[harrythehawk]

Must say the Sky went out of the window when I first discovered my debt nightmare, along with the window cleaner, bin cleaner, paper deliveries, going to football etc etc .... just non-essentials really apart from the beamer which I have kept on the road (yay!), Sky is back now, not in full but because I could combine it with my internet and phone, therefore I have made a saving and getting some bonus channels out of it ...... I did miss the sports and history !!

[alecmac18]

Told ya:

 

Sell BSkyB - interactive investor

 

 

and the telling line.......

 

The long-term decline started in July 2007........hmmmmm......when did bank charge refunds stop?

[Enron]

Interestingly I still receive a steady stream of mail from Sky trying to tempt me to return.... so much so for their environmental credentials.

[lickthewallfatboy]

we binned the sky pay channels

 

do we miss them?Do we f.....