With irregular intervals I notice streaming providers, especially the ones that have paid wild amounts of money for broadcasting rights to the most valuable sports events, turn on their lobbying machine and produce variations of the same story: Don’t use IPTV, you’re supporting organized crime. And every single time I get slightly annoyed.
Not because I condone criminal activity, nor am I unwilling to pay for access to content, but because the only service that is available for me to purchase is both so ridiculously priced, and also it’s nowhere near the service I am actually interested in!
This is especially evident when it comes to the most valuable broadcasting rights. Due to historic reasons, football is extremely focused on Premier League, and back in 2020 Viaplay spent an absurd amount of money to secure the exclusive rights from 2022/23 until 2027/28 across the Nordic countries and replace TV2 who had held the rights since 2010. Rumors say the price for the whole party was 20.000.000.000 NOK.
Since then, the bubble has thoroughly burst, the shareholder value of Viaplay has taken a dive worthy of an Olympic athlete, and with a new Premier League season starting this weekend it’s a bit puzzling to me that the only effort to regain lost revenue and paying customers are a few ads and small discounts on premium bundles offered by partners.
The massive problem with this is just: I am not interested in a premium bundle!
What I am interested in purchasing, and willing to pay quite a hefty price for is simple:
Of the 380 matches every season, I am interested in the 38 involving my favorite team. Of the 10 matches played every round, I want to watch one of them. 2x45 minutes. Bathroom/food/snack/chore-break between the two halves and then go do something else.
But what you’re trying to sell me is a whole bunch of things I am not interested in. I do not want a bundle of TV channels I never watch, or access to films/series, or hockey, or motor sports (well, that’s not true. I do like watching Formula1, but I find that F1TV has a superior product that I am already paying for), or the studio show with build-up to the match and commentary after, the reporters/faded retired players reporting live from the stadium etc.
In short: There is a huge gap between what I am willing to pay for, how much I am willing to pay for it, and the only offer available
To purchase access to the 38 matches I actually want to see I would need to buy the “Viaplay Total” subscription priced at 749 NOK per month. In total, from August to May this is 6741 NOK, or 177 NOK per match. I could go to the pub every week, watch the match, have a beer (or other beverage of choice), and go back home for cheaper than that. I could fly til England once a year to watch a match live for cheaper than that.
So no, I won’t be a returning customer. I’m not going to pay for some shady illegal streaming service either. I am going to do something that is far worse for your product in the long run: I am just going to be less and less interested as time goes by, and it would be harder and harder to catch my interest ever again.