It has been widely reported this week that Sky has backed out of exclusive sales negotiations for Tiscali’s UK broadband business. This follows Carphone Warehouse’s apparent exit from the auction process a few weeks back on the basis of price and the challenges associated with integrating Tiscali’s disparate customer operations. 

The report in the Guardian this week notes that Sky and Tiscali’s Italian parent were unable to agree on price, with Tiscali looking for a price of around £600m and Sky looking to pay closer to £450m. 

The deal would immediately have made Sky Britain’s third-largest broadband provider as Sky currently have over 1.8m customers, and Tiscali have 1.77m UK customers.

Crucially, despite very attractive pricing and heavy promotion, Tiscali are losing customers in the UK.  Their high customer churn has meant that their subscriber numbers actually declined in the last quarter by nearly 40,000 subscribers.   This coupled with the deteriorating economic climate and slumping company valuations, makes Sky’s decision to apparently back out of the negotiations understandable.

But despite these issues, if Sky believe that there is strategic logic in the deal, they may well be playing a longer game.  With a notable absence of competing buyers, Sky may well be walking away, to let Tiscali stew in its own juice for a few further weeks, before returning to negotiations next year. 

One thing that seems clear is that the longer a potential buyer waits, the better terms they are likely to dictate. So don’t count Sky out of the hunt for Tiscali just yet.

Written by chris

Sky TV says 3D television could be just around the corner for British viewers.

The satellite broadcaster has said that it has successfully tested the delivery to a normal household television via their high definition set-top box.

Over the past few months Sky has been filming events using 3D camera technology including a Six Nations rugby union international that was broadcast in 3D to an audience at a theatre in London.

Sky have gone a step further by showing that 3D could be delivered into homes, through its Sky+HD set-top box, without much difficulty at all.

Lawrence Bleach of Simplifydigital says.

“Whilst 3DTV remains, for some, the subject of science fiction films from the 70s, the news from Sky would suggest the reality isn’t far away.  The great news is that it would seem this latest evolution in TV won’t require a new set top box, instead Sky are saying an existing Sky+HD box will do the job.  With other broadcasters yet to make any announcements, it may be another reason to pick Sky as your preferred digital TV provider.  Add the fact that they also have a strong broadband (up to 16Mb) and home phone offering, and Sky continues to be one of the digital service providers pushing the innovations. 

Only 3 years ago Sky launched HD digital TV, and that is fast becoming mainstream with over 600,000 subscribers to the Sky service and other broadcasters and digital TV platforms now also offering high definition services.  You wouldn’t bet against Sky being the first to the UK market with 3D and setting the pace again”

Some things to note about 3DTV is that you will need a 3D ready television set, not yet available in UK stores, and you would need to wear 3D polarising glasses but, 3DTV could be on British shores sooner rather than later - Some channels in Japan are already been broadcast in 3D whilst major TV manufacturers are currently looking at building 3DTV prototypes without the need to wear 3D glasses whilst viewing.

Written by chris

We’ve issued a press release today announcing the findings of our most recent piece of research - looking at people’s choice of home phone, broadband and digital TV providers, how long they’ve had them and some of the reasons behind people not benefiting from some of the best deals they could do.

We’re always looking for ways in which we can help people save money, so the reasons why people don’t switch and bundle their services are always really interesting to us. Here’s what we found out: 

> Cash strapped Britons are wasting £900 million by sticking to legacy deals on their digital TV, broadband and home phone services!

> Over half of you (59%) feel under pressure to save money on digital services due to the credit crunch.

> 1 in 3 people have not changed their home phone provider for over 5 years. 

> 1 in 4 of you are still buying all three services separately instead of saving £360 a year by bundling them together! That’s the equivalent of a return flight to New York or £30 a month to put back into the family budget. 

> Over 45% of consumers have not switched their broadband provider in the last 2 years and a third (33%) have not changed their home phone supplier for over five years.

> Nearly two out of three people (59%) feel under pressure to save money on digital services as a result of the credit crunch, and 63% have taken the trouble to research the market within the last 12 months, but only one in five (21%) have actually switched in the last year due to total confusion.

So why are people so confused and seemingly unable to switch and save?  Well just under 50% of people say that the reason that they have not switched is as a result of a combination of confusion as a result of too many conflicting deals available (19%), fear of the sheer time and effort required to switch (14%); and a lack of impartial advice as to where the best deals are to be found (13%).

As Charlie (our CEO) puts it, “This is where Simplifydigital can really help, it is the only company in the UK to be accredited by the regulator Ofcom to provide a completely free and impartial advisory service to help people save money on their digital TV, broadband and home phone services.”  

Enough said. Get in touch on 0800 988 8148 or head on over to the special triple-play section of our site here to find out how to help us help you make that £900 million figure smaller next time. 

PS: The full press release is available over here - we’d be interested to hear what you think of the results and the juicy bits that we’ve highlighted.

Written by Jonathan

We want to let more people know about what Simplifydigital does and how it can help you get the very best deal when it comes to choosing your digital TV, broadband and home phone packages. Up until now this blog has been used mainly to share the latest news from us, along with other useful guides, tips and tidbits to help make finding the very best package and keeping up to speed on the latest deals as easy as possible. Now, we want to up the ante a bit and start using the blog as much more of a conversation platform, a way to talk directly with you, share some of the good stuff people say about us, find out more about what you’re looking for in a service like us and ultimately give us a home on the web that we can link back to and share more useful things with you. So, do get involved and let us know how we’re doing. 

Our Smartsearch comparison tool is free and officially accredited by the industry watchdog Ofcom for providing impartial advice. Indeed, we’ve noted in the past that research has shown that consumers can save on average £160 a year (!) by bundling their services and Simplifydigital is here to offer free consultations with experts! We have a team here that really does know their stuff and you can call them right now (for free!) on 0800 1388 388 or if you prefer, just head on over to our Smartsearch comparison tool and see what package our clever little piece of technology recommends for you. You might be surprised, or just a little bit reassured. Either way, give it a go and let us know what you think. 

And to kick things off, here’s Jon Bentley giving us a big thumbs up on the Gadget Show this week as he went in search of the best broadband deal in Britain. It was a great piece, in fact so good our site went down for a few minutes after being hit by a wave of Gadget Show viewers eager to try us out! We also experimented a bit with Twitter that night (Follow us here) by following people that were watching the Gadget show or talking about broadband-related things and saying hi. This seemed to go down pretty well and one Twitterer John Hood loved it so much, he has since written very nice things about us on his blog, which all you Mac and/or Star Wars fans should check out. 

So, over the next few weeks, expect to hear a lot more from us as we ask you about your experiences and how we can help out. We’d like to get a conversation going and let even more people know about Simplifydigital because we (obviously!), and lots of other people (check out some of our reviews), think it’s pretty smart. Oh, did we mention that it’s free?

Written by Jonathan