Sky’s UK and Ireland CEO has downplayed the threat of OTT services to pay-TV, stating that they do not pose as much of a threat in Europe as they do in the US.
The popularity of Amazon and Netflix across UK households has in fact opened up more potential revenue streams for Sky, Stephen van Rooyen told attendees at an annual ISBA gathering on the 3rd of July, Digiday reports.
“There’s a lot of noise around Amazon and Netflix entering the UK TV market and eating the British broadcasters’ lunch,” van Rooyen said. “That’s not how we see it at Sky. We simply see more partnerships and more great content.”
Netflix is being bundled with Sky’s premium subscription package later this year.
“We’re investing the equivalent of $10 billion for five countries versus Netflix’s $13 billion for the planet,” van Rooyen added. “Our model is different when you think that we’re buying sports rights, producing news and creating original programming for different markets.”
Van Rooyen went on to reveal that Sky’s AdSmart platform hasn’t grown as quickly as expected: “There are some archaic trading methods in our [ad] industry that prevent us from getting momentum behind making that broader [addressable TV] standard available to more advertisers than it is today,” he said.
