Home of The Champions

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

My letter to the forum and Starhub's !@#$ response

Free channels not needed, give us only EPL and nothing else
http://www.straitstimes.com/ST+Forum/Online+Story /
STIStory_128539.html

I READ with disappointment the news that StarHub will be increasing the price of its Sports channels to $25 from October.

This means that EPL fans in Singapore must fork out a minimum of $49 without GST every month just to watch the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo 'live' on TV.
Compare this to the cost of watching the EPL in our neighbouring country, Malaysia.

Astro cable TV's minimum price plan to watch the EPL is only RM54.95 ($24.44), which is even cheaper than the one offered by StarHub before the price increase ($35) (http://www.astro.com.my/v5/getastro/price.asp).

EPL fans in Singapore don't need the free channels, namely the History and Crime and Investigation channels, purposely dished out by StarHub to please subscribers for the price hike. We just want the EPL and nothing else.

Yap Peng Koon

Starhub's Response:
http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/Online%2BStory/STIStory_128888.html

Pay-TV subscription packages: Difficult to make fair comparison with Malaysia's Astro

WE REFER to the letter by Mr Yap Peng Koon, 'Free channels not needed, give us only EPL and nothing else' (Online forum, June 13).

It is difficult to make a like-to-like comparison of pay-TV subscription packages between different countries as there are many factors that influence cost of goods which will consequently drive the pricing models.

For pay-TV, factors like the size of the market, potential for advertising sales and other operating conditions such as the cost of living are key drivers.

To illustrate, StarHub's pay-TV subscriber base was at 43.6 per cent as at end-March 2007 and the total number of pay-TV households in Singapore was effectively 490,000.

On the other hand, Astro, with a lower 34.1 per cent penetration in Malaysia, had 1,832,000 subscribers, which was over three-and-a-half times more than ours.

So, with Astro having a larger base and also Malaysia being a large market with more room for further growth, the content providers can be given the required level of income at a lower unit cost.

In short, it is effectively about the ability of spreading costs over a wider base and enjoying the benefits of economies of scale.

Having said that, Mr Yap may be pleased to note that StarHub's new minimum price plan for sports fans that will be introduced in October will be less costly when compared with the minimum price plans (with sports) offered by operators in countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

In addition, while other pay-TV operators in countries such as Malaysia and Hong Kong have already raised sports subscription prices, StarHub has decided not to introduce an immediate adjustment to our sports prices but to implement it only in October, even after the new EPL season kicks off.

This is in spite of the fact that we are already paying higher prices for all our sports content previously and now. We will announce details of new promotional packages and discounts related for our sports customers in the near future.

We hope our future promotions and discount packages to be introduced closer to October will appeal to local sports fans.

Finally, we would like to assure our customers that StarHub remains committed to presenting the best quality and most comprehensive sports coverage, and we will always strive to do so in value-for-money packages.

Thomas Ee
Senior Vice-President of Cable, Fixed & IP Services
StarHub

angelzone | 9:34 pm | me, myself and i