Sky Discounts Neon Ahead of Disney+
September 3, 2019 
2 Comments
Sky is the first of the local players to discount its streaming service in the face of looming powerhouse competition from Disney+.
Today it announced Neon’s TV and movie options would be combined into a single package for only $13.95 a month — down from the $20 it’s previously cost to subscribe to both.
The bad news is Neon will no longer offer its $12-a-month TV-only service, so TV subscribers who want to stay with the platform will have to pay $2 a month more.
The move comes after Sky has upgraded the streaming platforms with a better user experience and more exclusive content, including launching series ahead of their linear run on SoHo.
It’s also designed to lock up more Neon subscribers two months out from the launch of Disney+, which has surprised the industry with the competitive pricing of its direct-to-consumer blockbuster slate.
At $10 a month in NZ, the quality and quantity of its movie and TV line-up will overshadow the similarly priced Amazon Prime Video and dwarf local players like Neon and Lightbox.
The new pricing for Neon TV subscribers is effective from October 4 while those on the TV-and-movies package will start to pay less from their next billing date.
Of course, it’s possible that once Disney+ is up and running here, Sky may move to offer what it should have done from the outset: bundle Neon free to subscribers of its entertainment and movie packages (as it’s belatedly done with SoHo).
Another point of difference to local competition would be to provide 4K streams. Like Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ will offer these for the same price as HD streams whereas Netflix gouges 4K subscribers for the premium viewing Ultra HD content.
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September 3, 2019 at 7:20 pm
It’s about time we had real competition in New Zealand. Thanks, Disney+ 🙂
If Neon had introduced this sort of pricing in the past, then Spark would have complained that Lightbox was being foreclosed by another player.
Think Lightox @ $13/mth for TV only, Neon for $14/mth for TV/movies. Spark would complain that Neon are deliberately loss leading to crowd out of the market (and hence a reason why Lightbox has failed). Now with Lightbox a clear financial failure, Neon can price how it likes given the prima facie evidence of Lightbox’s performance. Can’t compete too early, Trevor, people complain to the regulator about market power.