Coliseum Sports - EPL Overlords

after watching live for 20 years,,,,,the delayed coverage will do me,,,,on sky and freeview which is great..... plus the bonus of actually sleeping on a Sunday and Monday mornings......

Sad times that shortland street is in HD but prem league is not. 

I think that last sentence is good, it is a potentially really good service. Because of this, I'm perhaps a bit more willing to allow the odd hiccup (game has frozen on me once) than I would be with sky. Safe with the knowledge that it will get better and be better than the service sky has provided for so long. I welcome the competition into the market, and see the potential for it to do really good things (this is already evident as more football is available than ever before). 

In some ways it is already better than sky:

* Ability to watch in any room, on a number of devices (well...once they get the apps approved...but for now it is still good to have the option of laptop or TV)

* All games live, 7 on demand and 3 available 24 hours (on average). Sky would only ever show about 7 games per week, generally only 4 (on average) of which were live. 

* A more extensive and timely highlights and preview package. Previously had to wait until Monday night for the 50 minute long highlights. Now Theyre available more or less straight after the round. Plus there is one for each day, rather than just the one for the whole round. Some really cool added preview shows too, of which sky only had 1. 

* As above, the competition has meant more football than ever before. Sky and sommet have both purchased content from the top 6 clubs that include pre and post match content from that particular club. 

* Not having to worry about your mysky hard drive filling up, or a game being accidentally deleted. The games are just there. 

*getting football on free to air in NZ. Sky never put football on prime. 

Ways in which it has the potential to better sky: 

* It is quite simple for them to add extra competitions or even sports to the platform. This could lead to more diversity in the future. 

* As more sport moves over to a platform like PLP, sport will effectively be unbundled. Meaning you pay only for what you want. Saving a fair bit of money. 

* More content for your dollar. This is already slightly the case, as those 3 games being shown for 24 hours are theoretically more than SKY offered (10 games, 3 of which are only available 24 hours vs 7 games), this could get even more evident in the future. For example, if you purchase an MLB subscription, you gain access all 2430 MLB games across the season. Thats a lot more than the 2-3 SKY currently shows through ESPN. 

Ways in which they are currently worse than SKY:

* Image Quality isn't HD. Generally just SD quality for most people, however some people with bad internet/wifi/hardware have to settle for less. 

* Slight Inconvenience of setting up the device to the TV every time. For some this is more than slightly inconvenient as they may not own a laptop or a tablet, and may be stuck watching it on their PC. However purchasing an apple TV would theoretically solve this problem, which is an extra cost...But so was having to purchase a freeview decoder. 

* Games lagging or freezing. A number of factors could be causing this for various people, some of which are out of Coliseums control. Nonetheless, it is a factor of the service that clearly makes it worse than SKY for some people. 

* 13 of each of the big clubs games for the season will only be available for 24 hours and for 1 viewing. This doesn't make it worse than sky for all of the consumers out there, but it will annoy a fair amount of them as with SKY they could watch these clubs all they wanted (with MYSKY) or they had replays to watch. 

Things Coliseum could improve on (That don't/won't necessarily make them worse/better than SKY). 

* Getting the 130 games that are currently only available for 24 hours and 1 viewing, available for longer and multiple viewings. I still don't understand why they cannot do this. If they could do this, it would improve their product greatly. 

* Communicating information more clearly and consistently. There seem to be a fair amount of confusion around their product, and they haven't been particularly good in addressing those people at times. They have also sent out different messages about their product (e.g the 130 games confusion) through different channels.

* A cheaper day pass would encourage people to try the product before they buy it. Because of the nature and newness of the platform they operate on, there will always be uncertainty from people who will have no idea if the product will work well for them, and $150 is a lot of money to shell out for something you are uncertain of - $25 is a lot of money to shell out just to test a product as well.

There is probably more, but thats all I can be bothered writing. 

Well written Tegal, I think you fairly and unbiasedly summed up everything that has been said on here.

I am watching a stream of the City vs Newcastle game, and the quality is as good as what I watched over the weekend, plus I got the added advantage of seeing Carra and G Nev do the half time analysis on MNF.  That'll do me.

My only real gripe is that because Sky still have A-league coverage I can't really ditch their sports package. Or I could if I could find an alternative  for watching A-league games. This hasn't stopped me purchasing the Premier League Pass, which I am enjoying. I would just like to find an A-league alternative.

As someone said on here a few pages back. They used 8 gig on the first day alone exploring everything to do with his team. You're gonna need at least 100 gig per month because the more well supported clubs in europe etc, various other cup games and prematch/post match info. This is seriously gonna eat up your allowance, especially at "Best quality".

Yeah I'm starting to think 60GB isn't enough for us. I'm watching a lot of games and highlights. But not too fussed about it, as when we changed plans from 30GB to 60GB it actually saved us $30 per month. 

Discovered yesterday that it will cost us about $15 from memory to go from 40gb to 100gb. No brainer. Seems as though once you reach the 50gb or so mark you can increase your data dramatically for a comparatively low price.

Android app released: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neulion.android.plp&hl=en

iOS app has gone from Awating to In Review today, should come out soon hopefully.

Nah stayed with Vodafone, more reliable and faster broadband, plus knew what we were getting. 

Just put in snap fibre and everything I read aligns that Snap's service quality is best in market- even adsl2+

What is that supposed to mean? I outlined pros as well as cons. Potential pros, and other things that they need to work on. What the hell else do you want. 

And I'd also like to point out that I have mentioned every single one of those points (both good and bad) at some point either on here or on twitter. 

I think I'm allowed to enjoy the service overall, and still be able to see its faults as well as its good things. I don't see why I would be biased at all either. 

cough choke is not a fair argument to a decently thought-out piece

Thank fuck aussie still give us all the EPL live.

you lucky lucky bugger

Australian-based internet television company Quickflix has renewed calls for Sky Television to offer its sports channels as a standalone service that could be bought without its basic entertainment package.

New Zealand chief executive Paddy Buckley said it would also like to see Sky forced to wholesale its sports service to competitors, to improve competition in the pay-television market.

Buckley visited Wellington yesterday to meet with Communications Minister Amy Adams. He said more than 10,000 New Zealanders subscribed to Quickflix and it expected to get a boost from the extra awareness created by Coliseum's English Premier League online streaming service, PremierLeaguePass, which would help "educate" the market about the possibilities created by internet television.

"If we don't maintain revenues from the channels, the effects down the line could possibly be less revenue for sporting codes and for grass roots sports in New Zealand."

Sky can shut the f*ck up right now with that PR rubbish, the revenue of the sporting codes is the last thing they give a sh*t about.

Sky will do whatever gives them the highest profit margin - which is not 'un-bundling' their packages at the moment. 

and you think companies like collisum and sommet aren't looking for the same???

What is the big deal with unbundled sport?  Personally I like a sports package that means that I can watch sport all the time if I want, but means that I haven't specifically committed to buying any individual packages.

Take Baseball - I like baseball and I watch probably 1 game every 2 or 3 weeks.  I would never dream of paying for MLB.TV even though I can afford it, because I would never feel like I would get value for money.  If all sport become bundled, I would probably only watch 2 sports, whereas now with Sky I get to watch probably half a dozen additional different sports (football, league, cricket, rugby, basketball, baseball, NFL, netball)

Tying and bundling is anti-competitive and often illegal

I was more complaining about bundling sport in with Sky's entertainment package. I buy it for sport, not to keep up with the Kardashians etc.

I agree with you guys on some level - for example I too enjoy a bit of baseball but wouldn't splash for MLB tv.

Ok. For the price of sky for a year, if all sport was unbundled and prices similarly to PLP, MLBTV etc, you could get about 8-10 or so sports, full content etc. you could watch only a few games per week of any game you want (instead of just having to watch what they tell you) and you would only pay for what sports you want to watch. You'd also end up with more diversity of sports and different competitions. 

That's not what I think. 

I didn't refer to Coliseum or Sommet whatsoever, my post was not a comparison in any way. 

I was just showing Sky up for bullsh*t from their marketing representative or whoever the rent-a-quote was in there. They aren't interested in un-bundling because it may affect their profit margin. But they tell us it's because sporting codes at a grassroots level may have their revenue affected. Yea ok. What a crock. Sky does not care about that , but they know that we do, that's why they say it. PR PR PR PR.

but I also watch television shows across probably another 7 or 8 television channels.  Do I have to pay for Comedy Central because I occassionally watch Family Guy on weekend mornings?  Do I have to pay for MTV because every now and then I get drunk and want to see what the kids are listening to?

It is not the cost of this - it is the value for money.  at the moment I pay for Sky and I watch enough sports, movies and general TV to be able to justify the costs. If it was all unbundled, I would be thinking "I am paying $150 per year to watch 6 games of rugby/episodes of Duck Dynasty/music videos/etc".   

When people talk about 'unbundling' do they literally mean many different providers holding the rights to many different sports? (or even different leagues, teams, clubs etc within sports). Or do they mean a smaller group of providers simply providing more flexibility in how they offer sports?

I'd certainly like to see a supplier like Sky offer more flexibility such as building each of their channels around a core sport (eg. Rugby, Cricket, League and Football) and then allowing you to subscribe channel by channel. I'd also like to see them offer more flexibility about when and how you watch.

I'm not sure the most extreme form of unbundling is that desirable. Total pain in the arse having to subscribe to ten different providers because you like ten different sports. Especially as the rights will change hands from time to time.

Bundling is good for consumer convenience as long as it is competitive. What we need is a handful of key players who compete around price, delivery options, live vs delayed, add-ons, but not necessarily the core content. That would be great for consumers.

Tegal, do you still have sky out of interest? 

Its $1080 with mysky + sport. And that's without HD. I think that's fair as it means a comparable service (ability to watch on demand effectively). So it works out at about 8 bundles. 

Yes I do have sky, but I don't see how that's relevant to how unbundling sport in the future. Yes, it costs more now because having to pay for sky's bundled package plus coliseums EPL means that I end up paying more. But this is a conversation about how a theoretical unbundling of sport of some variety (and terminator X made a very good post about it after frankie mac had bought up some good points too) would lead to cheaper prices and more variety.

I don't think its particularly time consuming to sign up to PLP, so more providers is hardly as inconvenient as you claim. We already have sommet on freeview, sky and PLP and I don't feel like it has somehow taken up a lot of my time. 

I'm no necessarily even saying that many providers will happen, sky could unbundle their own package to some extent, coliseum could be gone, others may come into the market, I don't care who does it. But competition is good. 

We've had this conversation before. You claim that I am a fanboy who cannot see any negatives with coliseum and other platforms like this. But on the contrary I have mentioned problems many times on twitter and my posts on here, I have even sent them an complaint via email. I can also see positives. I also think I am allowed to enjoy the product overall. So I put to you that you can only see the negatives, I have only ever seen criticisms from you, yet you are the one who effectively calls me a biased fanboy? 

Its not completelyredundant. I still said those thing whether people follow me on there or not. Besides, scottishbhoy does follow me on twitter. 

But point taken, though I've also posted just as many criticisms and negatives on here as well. 

I just record the radio commentaries with TuneIn overnight, listen throughout the day. $150 is probably fair, but our internet is dodgy enough to handle streaming

Could be worse though, I'm not really complaining. The way of things.